


are you the one? (yep, that was me)

by ErisDea



Category: Captain America (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: (Darcy-anger issues not HULK-ones), Darcy confronts Bucky, F/M, I was crying while I was writing, M/M, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, also, anger issues, like depression, serious self-esteem issues, sex issues, so many feels right there, wild angsty shit appears in chapter 5
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-11 07:38:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2059584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErisDea/pseuds/ErisDea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first person to confront her about it is Captain America, who comes to her unmasked, wide-eyed and looking torn between horror and hysterical laughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. are you the one who repainted the arm in tony’s lab this morning?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amusewithaview](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amusewithaview/gifts).
  * Inspired by [lend a hand (my heart's full of love)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2057796) by [amusewithaview](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amusewithaview/pseuds/amusewithaview). 



> This is amusewithaview's fault, because _lend a hand (my heart's full of love)_ was like, *throws inspiration here*, *throws inspiration there*, and I caught one. Ugh.
> 
> Hope I did her series justice. =D

Darcy doesn't mean to do it— okay yeah, that was a lie, she _totally_ meant to and had very much enjoyed doing it. And the whole reason she even _owns_  a cassette player is so that JARVIS couldn't hack into her music device and make her hear him protesting whatever she would be doing that he would protest at. (The 'I can't hear you over the sound of my shitty cassette player's music' tactic actually works, if you could believe it.)

However, she _will_ maintain that the blame should be co-shared with Clint, Tony and JARVIS, because Clint’s the one who started their little prank war, Tony was the one who rigged the coffee machine to pelt her face with neon pink (because _of course_ it had to be pink, _Jesus_ ) paintball and JARVIS, oh man, JARVIS could've told someone to come down and stop her or even stop the process altogether if he really wanted her prank to fail.

And they knew— _they knew—_ that she would retaliate after the pink paintball thing, and it was just _right there_ , lying inside the fabrication press and so shiny and new and practically _begging_ to be colored and Darcy, well, Darcy just couldn't resist.

The first person to confront her about it is Captain America, who comes to her unmasked, wide-eyed and looking torn between horror and hysterical laughter. “Are you the one who repainted the arm in Tony’s lab this morning?”

Her internal fangirling (because _Captain America is talking to me whaaaat?_ ) comes to a sudden stop, because _what did he just say?!_

And here's the thing: Darcy’s planned for this a long time ago, has had _years_  to formulate the perfect responses for the two separate lines decorating her back and abdomen. But she’d always thought that _the arm_ in the question on her back was, y’know, a painting of an arm, and considering her painting talents and lack thereof, she’d eventually started thinking that the correct response to _Are you the one who repainted the arm in Tony’s lab this morning?_ would be _Dude, the only things I can repaint are walls, fingernails and toenails, so you probably have the wrong person_.

So in the wake of realizing who just said the exact words written on her back, Darcy’s brain fails to deliver the proper reply and instead provides her mouth with the incredibly generic, but also honest answer of “Yep, that was me.”

Captain America doesn't seem to think anything of her response. “I— _Why?_ ” he splutters, a laugh struggling to get out.

Darcy exhales in relief (and disappointment, because _hello, Captain America as her soulmate, just whaaaat?)_ and smiles in chagrin, and then points at her pink-stained face. “Revenge,” she answers simply.

Captain America’s chin quivers visibly (Darcy has to swallow back an appreciative sound and _no, panties, bad panties, stay on!_ ) before he waves a hand and staggers away to (uselessly) hide his laughter, which bounces through the hall anyway. Darcy grins, because now that the shock has passed, she is fully able to appreciate the idea that her prank had made _Captain America_ laugh his guts out.

Her brain, however, is a scumbag brain, so it’s not long until her thoughts drift back to the possibility that Captain America is her soulmate. Because face it, Stark (Avengers) Tower had a surprisingly low number of Tonys in the building, and only one in particular who had a lab, and sure, Jane _sometimes_ goes to other places with Tonys and labs that isn't the tower, but Darcy doesn't always go with her. So really, the only Tony who has a lab she could paint in is Tony Stark, and Tony Stark had an arm in his lab this morning that Darcy painted, and it made sense that only the people who could enter that lab could ask the question that’s been written on Darcy’s back since she was born.

But, and here’s the part that keeps bugging her, it’s _Captain America_ who said the words on her back and that just, _ngh_ , that just _doesn't_ happen.

She says this to Jane, because who else can she say it to?, and Jane levels this look at her before lifting her shirt up to show the runes etched around her bellybutton.

Darcy can’t help but laugh, remembering Thor’s sheepish expression when he translated the Asgardian lingo for them. “Point taken.”

“You should go talk to him,” Jane advises while folding her shirt back down, and as if divine providence just occurred, the door opens to admit Captain America. Jane smiles and waggles her eyebrows. “You’re welcome,” she jokes.

“Can we talk?” Captain America says, giving her a look that tells her he’s very much aware that she might possibly be his soulmate.

Darcy wonders why he couldn't have given her that look earlier, because _now_ she’s had time to ruminate over this and freak herself out at the idea that he was, indeed, one of her soulmates.

“She was just saying that,” Jane, the little traitor, answers for her, which is how she finds herself following Captain America into the elevator.

“I’m sorry,” are the first words Captain America says since their earlier meeting. “I should’ve realized who you were as soon as you spoke.”

“Can I see it?” Darcy blurts out, because it’s one of the things that’s been itching at her since she started confiding in Jane. And then she flushes and backtracks, because wow, _rude_ much? “No wait, I’m sorry, I shouldn't have asked that, ugh, so rude, you don’t have to show it to me—”

Captain America taking his shirt off effectively shuts her up.

Darcy tries (and fails, she’s sure) not to swoon. Or drool. (But like she said, she’s sure she failed at both.)

“ _Ngh_ ,” escapes her throat as her eyes dance over _those abs omg_ and take in the familiar tight lettering of her handwriting scrawled diagonally over his right pec. _Yep, that was me._ said the words on his skin, and Darcy is seized by the sudden desire to lick them.

Swallowing heavily, she tears her gaze from the (glorious) sight of his torso to meet his gaze and nearly chokes when she sees the intent look in his eyes. “Your turn,” he tells her, and Darcy feels her pulse skyrocket at the gruffness of his voice, _god_.

Her hands don’t exactly shake as she lifts her shirt up and turns around, but they don’t feel connected to her either, like they belonged to someone else and she’s just getting distant feedback from it. She doesn't feel the fabric of her shirt, doesn't feel her fingers curl as they hook into the hem and pull up, but when fingers not her own trace the words across her back, Darcy closes her eyes and thinks she can feel the scrape of them through her own fingertips and wants to whimper and press her thighs together because this?

This was the most intense moment of her _life_.

“Goddamn it,” he says, bringing Darcy back to the present. “I can’t believe my first words to you have Tony Stark in them.”

A surprised laugh escapes her, and the atmosphere around them lightens ever so slightly. “Not my fault,” she tells him.

“Kind of is,” he disagrees, and Darcy abruptly remembers why those were his words in the first place.

“Oh right,” she chuckles. “Sorry.”

Captain America turns her gently around, and she sees that his attention is briefly caught on the words on her belly before he drags his eyes up to meet hers. “Hi,” he says, the earnestness in his voice oddly _not_ contrasting with his shirtlessness. “I’m Steve.”

“Hi Steve,” she replies, still a little astounded by everything that’s happened, but slowly getting over the shock (again). “I’m Darcy.”

“Darcy,” he echoes, and she can’t help but watch his lips as they shape her name. “There’s someone I think you should meet.”

The elevator _ding!_ s open, and Steve’s fingers trail down her arm to take her hand. Darcy fails to resent him for his obvious seduction tactics, but only because she’s enjoying the fact that _Captain America_ is trying to seduce her (and succeeding too, though that’s really not a surprise, is it?). She follows him through the hall and into the bedroom she’s pretty sure Tony set aside for him, judging by the red and blue theme and the white stars plastered to the ceiling (Darcy bets they glow in the dark, because that’s how Tony Stark rolls), and takes in the _I like you, kid. You’re brave. Kind of stupid for taking those guys on, but pretty damn brave._ she finds on his upper back with dawning realization.

It really shouldn't surprise Darcy that the first time she meets the Winter Soldier, it’s with a gun in his hand and an equally red-blue-and-white, formerly silver metal arm. (He’s shirtless too, because they’re allergic to clothes, apparently, so Darcy easily sees the _It’s not about being brave or stupid. I just don’t like bullies._ that covers his torso, which was obviously a reply to the sentence etched on Captain America— _Steve_ ’s back. Darcy’s realization solidifies into something a little more tangible than guesswork.)

Somehow though, she _is_ surprised, and her feet freezing in the doorway means Captain Ameri— _Steve_ pulls her a little too far and causes her to trip over air. Luckily, he has superb reflexes. Unluckily, his arms are almost as hard as steel.

“I think your bicep gave me a concussion,” she tells him after the kerfuffle of her falling is over.

“I’m so sorry,” Captain Am— _Steve_ bemoans.

“That’s okay,” Darcy says and, a little out of it from the adrenaline that’s suddenly coursing through her, tilts her head to him. “Kiss.”

She’s not sure who snorts, but someone does while Captain— _Steve_ presses his lips to the back of her head.

“Pink’s a nice color on you,” someone says, and Darcy looks up to see the very recognizable Sergeant James Barnes crouched beside her, his metal arm peeking from the sleeve of his shirt. For a moment, she doesn't understand, because she hasn't worn anything pink since the fifth guy who said a variation of that line to pick her up and turned out to be an epic douchebag later on.

And then she remembers the pink paint splattered across her face. “Tony Stark is a dead man,” she scowls, and has the absolute pleasure of watching him blink in surprise and shock.

“I—” He looks at Cap— _Steve_ (damn it), who Darcy sees smirks back and shrugs, before turning his gaze back to her and looking her over. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Barnes says, his eyes dropping to her lips. “You were right, Steve, she _is_ gorgeous.”

“Even with the pink?” Darcy asks, fighting a grin and a blush and feeling like she’s failing at both. In response, Barnes leans in and slants his lips over hers.

Darcy _definitely_ doesn't regret repainting the arm.


	2. tony stark is a dead man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky had feels he needed to share. He made me do it. Ugh. I don't even know anymore.

The first time James Barnes officially meets Tony Stark, he thinks he can see why his soulmark says what it says. The man is obnoxious, self-absorbed and irritatingly flamboyant and James makes a note to offer his services to the person whose words are on his back.

The sentiment grows when his arm is given back to him.

“What the fuck happened to it?” he asks, lifting his stare off the now-colorful arm to glare at the man across him.

“I don’t know, but I’ll check the security tapes,” he replies, the lie clear in his voice.

It doesn't take him long to realize why Stark is lying. “Who are you protecting?”

Suddenly, Stark doesn't seem very open or flashy, his body language shifting into a protective stance. “Do you want your arm back or not?” the inventor asks. “I can clean it back up, but it’ll take another day.”

James doesn't move, but he wants to, wants to grab the arm lying on the table and reattach it to himself because being one-handed? It _sucks_.

“Fine,” he says, and when he walks out thirty minutes later, Steve brings a hand up to stifle a laugh.

“Buck,” he greets, eyes locked on the arm. “I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t look it,” James tells him shortly.

Steve arranges his face to project a less amused expression. “I’ll get him to fix it,” he promises.

“Just— Just find out who did it,” James growls, already itching to get his hands around the culprit’s neck. He turns and walks away before Steve can see it in his eyes.

*

When Steve comes back to the room looking ashen and in shock, James feels alarm prickle up his spine.

“What is it?” he demands. “What happened?”

Steve meets his gaze and quietly says, “I think I met,” and gestures to The Spot on his chest.

James thinks his heart just dropped to his feet, and “Tell me” almost doesn't make it past his lips.

“It’s a woman,” Steve replies, and James feels his gut churn, because this, this was one of his biggest fears, but _hold steady_ _,_ he tells himself, because Steve, he has this idea that _Yep, that was me_ would be said to him by the same person who would tell James that _Tony Stark is a dead man_ , and that was still viable, so long as he hasn't met and spoken to  _Yep, that was me_  before.

But James, he's of the opinion that  _Yep, that was me_  is going to steal Steve from him, that this person is going to make Steve choose and Steve, he deserves better than James. He deserves _Bucky_ , but that's not who James is anymore. He was the Winter Soldier for too long and it shows in the way he wants to deal with things with no thought as to whether his methods fell under right or wrong, in the way he only cares that the job done. He may have Bucky Barnes's memories and he might feel as intensely for Steve as Steve does him, but that doesn't change the fact that he's something a little less human and a little more... something _else_.

“She’s gorgeous,” is the next thing out of Steve’s mouth, and that’s not helping James at all. “Brave, a little vicious.” He grins then and gestures to the arm. “She thought it was Tony’s,” he says. “He played a prank on her, so she tried to get him back. Thought your arm was part of the Iron Man suit.”

James doesn't react, but the knowledge that the person he wants to beat the hell out of for painting his arm is Steve’s other soulmate makes him feel uncomfortably guilty. (And... righteous? Yes, perhaps that's the word for it, because he's also feeling possessive and beating the hell out of Steve's other soulmate, even if it was a girl, would probably be cathartic if she was going to steal Steve from him.)

And then Steve groans and buries his face in his hands. “I didn't even react when she said it, Buck. I was so busy laughing.” That draws an unexpected laugh out of him, and Steve raises his head to scowl. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” James corrects, feeling a little better (even though he knows how wrong and selfish it was) to know that Steve might’ve botched his meeting with _Yep, that was me_.

“I don’t even know her name,” Steve admits, which only makes James smile easier.

“Are you sure it’s her?” he asks. “Didn't she react to whatever you said to her?”

Steve pauses. “Not that I noticed,” he groans, head falling back into his hands.

“That’s what you get for laughing at me,” James smirks, nudging Steve’s foot with his.

“Ugh.”

Feeling more confident that this girl  _wasn't_  the _Yep, that was me_ on Steve’s body, James jerks his head to the door. “Why don’t you go ask her?”

Steve’s head jerks up in surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah,” James shrugs. “Why not?”

Steve grins and shoots forward, grabbing James by the collar of his shirt and pulling him in for a quick kiss. James tugs him back, sliding his tongue past Steve’s lips and scratching his nails over the words on his back. Steve grunts and pulls at his shirt, ripping it down the front in his enthusiasm, but like James cares about a shirt when Steve is _right there_ with him.

“It could be her,” Steve says against his lips, his hand reaching around to touch the words on James’s back. “It makes sense.”

James hums noncommittally, not caring about the other when the first was already with him.

“I’m gonna go,” Steve tells him, pressing his lips in for a long peck before pulling back completely. “I need to know.”

James sighs. “Come back soon,” he says, and Steve smiles and hurries out of the room.

*

He doesn't expect to see Steve come back shirtless and dragging a girl with him, but the flare of jealousy isn't a surprise. The girl is lovely, with the kind of eyes, lips, tits and hips that James vaguely remembers liking back in the ‘40s. He almost wishes that she was _Tony Stark is a dead man_.

And then the girl stops while Steve pulls her forward, and James is out of his seat in the same moment Steve catches her. That’s a surprise too.

“I think your bicep gave me a concussion,” the girl says dazedly, and James purses his lips to hold back the snort building in his throat, not wanting to like the girl who he had to share with Steve. He wonders briefly if Steve would feel the same way when _Tony Stark is a dead man_ finally came into the picture.

“I’m so sorry,” Steve tells her fervently, hand moving to cup the back of her head.

“That’s okay,” the girl replies and, to James’s surprise and irritation, tilts her head forward to expose the back of her neck. “Kiss.”

The snort escapes as Steve obliges and presses his lips to the back of her head, meeting James’s gaze as he did so and tapping The Spot on his chest.

 _Obviously,_ James thinks, because why else would Steve be all handsy with her if she wasn't _Yep, that was me_.

And then Steve gestures to him, tapping on his mouth to signal that James speak to her, and James is a little bitter and hurt and yeah, _jealous_ , and he wants to prove Steve wrong because this girl? She doesn't look like the type to utter the words scrawled on his back.

Still, Steve was insistent, so James seeks the words that would be the least likely to produce the words of his other soulmate and says, “Pink’s a nice color on you,” confident that it would prove to Steve that—

“Tony Stark is a dead man.”

James blinks, because _what?_  How? How could _Pink’s a nice color on you_ ever lead to _Tony Stark is a dead man?_

He looks at Steve, who grins, shrugs as if to say ‘what can you do? It’s fate’ and turns his gaze back to _Tony Stark is a dead man_ with a fond and extremely pleased expression. James couldn't blame him for being smug—he’d only been insisting that _Yep, that was me_ and _Tony Stark is a dead man_ was the same person since James found the new marks on their bodies.

Suddenly, relief began to flood his veins, because _Yep, that was me_  and _Tony Stark is a dead man_  was _the same person_  and maybe he wasn't going to lose Steve to her after all.

He starts to smile. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

*

“Darcy,” Steve later gasps.

That’s how James learns her name.

*

You’d think that it’d get easier after that, but it doesn't. Once he comes down from the adrenaline high of having both Steve and _Tony Stark is a dead man_ without losing either of them to the other, James realizes how much of a liability Darcy can be. She’s a civilian with no enhancements, no combat training or even proficient with any kind of weapon that could be used to protect herself. And yes, he’s seen her with the Taser, but that’s not going to stop someone with a gun or a superpower unless they’re just five feet away from her.

She’s frail. _Mortal_.

A weakness.

He doesn't bring it up with Steve, already predicting what would be said. Steve sees Darcy as an avatar of all the innocence in the world and treats Darcy like the fragile girl she is, handling her with careful hands and kissing her with gentle firmness; he would never agree to have her trained nor would he agree to stop their relationship with her. And to be honest, James doesn't want to stop their relationship with her either.

Which leaves the other as the only option.

Darcy laughs. “That’s hilarious,” she tells him, stretching her arms up over her head. In less than a second, James is on top of her, a hand clamped over her wrists, his metal fingers wrapped loosely around her throat.

“What if I wanted to hurt you?” he asks quietly. “What if I wanted to hurt you and Steve’s not here, like now? What if it was someone who wanted information on Jane's work? Or someone who wants revenge on Steve or me or any of the others? What if it's an alien from some other world or even just your run of the mill mugger with a gun in his hand? Darcy,” he says, “if you can get out of this hold right here, right now, we can end this discussion and forget about it—”  _until tomorrow_ , he adds to himself, “—but if not, then we have to at least discuss it,”  _and start training tomorrow._

Her determination is something he admires about Darcy, and the way she hooks her legs under his extended arms and uses both their weights to throw him sideways is surprisingly effective. Though he doesn't expect it, he also adjusts quickly, rolling them off the bed so that he can get back on top with a more balanced stance.

“Impressive,” he admits, “but I’m still on top and,” he nudges the blunt side of his knife against her throat, “I've got you in a worse hold. If you try that again, you’ll slice your neck on this.”

“Where the hell did that come from?” she demands, surprised. “You are _naked_ , _I_ am naked, our pillows are weapons free—”

“I’m an assassin,” James reminds her. “I have tricks even without my sleeves.”

She groans. “Oh god, your _puns_ —”

“Focus, Darce.”

She grunts. “So you’re really serious about this,” she sighs.

“Yes.”

“ _Why?”_

He deliberates over what to say, trying to formulate the best explanation what would see to her agreement. “Because,” he says, adapting his tone to fit the argument he'd chosen, “you’re… you’re the weak link,” he tells her, and her eyes narrow at him. “ _Not_ just because you’re untrained,” he adds quickly before she could cut in, “but because we’d do anything so long as we get you back. You’re _weakness_ , Darce,” he tells her as earnestly as he could manage, “ _our_ weakness. And I don’t know what I’d do if you died.”

She stares up at him with wide eyes even after he pulls his hands off her body, and James is starting to think he’d chosen the wrong tactic, that he's scared her beyond speech, that he’s done it, chased her away after just _days_ of being together—

“Okay,” she says, cutting short his growing panic. “Training. Let’s do that.”

Relieved, James smiles and rewards her for seeing sense.

*

“I don’t like it,” Steve tells him while they watch Natasha teach Darcy some stretches.

“She needs to learn this, Steve,” James replies.

“I know, I know,” he says, because where James failed to convince him, Natasha  _hadn't_. “I just… I don’t like the idea that we won’t always be there to save her.”

“You think I do?” James asks. “You think she does? Steve, Darcy’s not just some girl who happens to be our soulmate. She works for Jane, she’s friends with the Avengers, Thor’s referred to her as his sister _in public_ and he’s an alien _prince_ , Steve, she _is_ a high value target for _anyone_ who wants to hurt the people in this building and I _will not_ leave her safety to _chance_.”

Steve blinks at him, and even James is surprised with the passion in his voice. It works to convince Steve though, because he pulls James into a quick, rough kiss and says, “Fine. Train her. I’ll… I’ll help.”

“Damn straight you’ll help,” Darcy calls over to them as she lifts a foot to follow Natasha’s kata. “I expect pampering. James promised to run me to the ground, so you’re in charge of making me feel better about getting my ass kicked. Understand?”

Steve huffs a laugh. “Ma’am yes ma’am,” he replies, saluting her.

*

“S’not fair,” Darcy says a few weeks later while she lies limp over Steve and traces her words on his skin.

“What’s not fair?” Steve asks, still breathing heavily. James would smile smugly, but he’s no better than the man slumped beside him.

“My words,” she sighs mournfully. “They’re so… _bland_. I was going to say something better, you know? Had it all ready and memorized, but _your face,_ ” she lets out a strangled noise, then sighs again.

James laughs. “At least they’re innocuous,” he tells her, looking over. “You and me? We got Stark’s name on our backs. _Both_ of us. What were the odds of that?”

Darcy laughs, but Steve makes a face. “God, I’m so sorry,” he tells her, making her snort.

“Steve, come on, you apologized for that forever ago,” she reminds him as she rolls off of him stiffly to straddle James's lap. “Mm, but I haven’t apologized to _you,_ have I?” she coos, her hands sliding up his chest while planting her lips against Steve’s words. “Whatever can I do to make it up to you, Mister Barnes?”

James grins, mentally patting himself on the back for bringing it up. “I dunno, Miss Lewis,” he murmurs while smoothing his hands up her back, pressing his fingers into the muscles starting to gain definition and enjoying the happy hum she makes. “Why don’t you inspire me?”

Darcy smirks. “Challenge accepted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I Steve? I feel like I would need to raise the rating up if I Steve. Ugh, why brain.


	3. feeling steve up, sweetheart?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which the rating goes up from T to M because _Steve_ , ugh, he just wouldn't let me cut the story off, kept insisting on being so...ugh, so _him_ T_T
> 
> Thank you everyone for all the awesome comments and kudos! So thrilled with the feedback! I hope Steve doesn't, I dunno, get weird for you, 'cause it was a close thing for me. He was just all over the place, like a hyperactive kid who got fed sugar. I could barely keep the chapter together and, ugh, _Steve_.

“What…” He purses his lip and clears his throat to control himself. “What did you _do?_ ”

Tony stares at him. “Are you… _laughing?_ ” he asks, and that just _destroys_ Steve’s composure. “Oh god,” Tony says, his mouth open in horror even as little chuckles escape him. “She broke Captain America.”

“Wh-who?” Steve asks in between guffaws.

Tony opens his mouth, but just as quickly clamps it shut. “Nothing,” he replies, and indeed, nothing Steve said to him would make Tony reveal the culprit behind Bucky’s, ahem,  _paint job_.

Finally, he uses his last resort. “JARVIS, do I have access to the footage in Tony’s workshop?”

“Indeed, Captain Rogers, you do.”

Steve glances at Tony, whose jaw clenches but says nothing. “May I please see it?”

It takes JARVIS a moment to reply. “Certainly, Captain,” comes the reply, and Steve glances at Tony again, who only bends down to tinker with the mess of electronics in front of him.

The video appears in midair with a transparent effect, _holograms_ , Steve recognizes as he watches a pretty female dressed in what was obviously a man’s dress shirt and shorts—or at least Steve _thinks_ she’s wearing shorts, because her legs and her feet are bare, and if Steve hadn't known Tony was madly in love with Miss Potts, he would've thought the girl had spent the night in Tony’s lab—pressing buttons on the machine where Bucky’s arm had rested. The machine in the video came to live, the gears circling the silver arm and spraying it with paint, and the female looks up at the camera and smirks, wide and proud and completely unashamed, before _skipping_ out of the room.

“What?” Steve intones, confused, because that wasn't what he was expecting. “Who the hell—?”

“Not a good puzzle if you get all the answers at once,” Tony says.

“JARVIS, who—?”

“I apologize, Captain Rogers,” the computer system says, “but I am no longer able to aid you in this particular endeavor.”

He shoots Tony a look, but Tony only smiles, tight and insincere. “You should go now,” he tells Steve. “Try the café on 20. She says the peanut butter’s killer.”

Steve hesitates, but Tony’s body language never changes, never loosens. So he leaves.

*

He’d thought he and Tony had been getting along better, but this, this is a setback, and Steve doesn't know what happened, not really, but this started when he asked about the girl, so of _course_ Steve hunts this girl down as soon as he leaves Tony’s lab. The girl painted Bucky’s arm (Steve snickers) thinking it was part of the Iron Man suit, and Tony _refused_ to divulge her identity. Steve needs to assess how the girl fits into the picture.

That she had access to the higher levels of the tower tells him she was somehow connected to the Avengers, so Steve starts on the residential floors. He crosses out his and Bucky’s rooms, as well as Thor and Jane’s and Tony and Pepper’s. That left Bruce (which Steve doubted, because Bruce was a recluse even with the team), Clint and Natasha.

He revises his list when he comes to the floor below Clint and Natasha’s and discovers several other bedrooms. One was unlocked and barren, but the other two were sealed, indicating that they were lived in (or, as in the case of Bruce, slept in).

“JARVIS,” he tries, “can I know who the occupants of this floor are?”

“I have been allowed to inform you only that this level is occupied by Doctor Foster’s peers, Captain,” JARVIS says.

Steve takes that to mean he was close to solving the identity of the girl. Thanking JARVIS, he returns to the elevator and heads down to Dr. Foster’s lab. Lady Luck apparently likes him, because he finds the girl the moment he steps out of the elevator, and Steve hangs back for a moment because seeing what she’s wearing does _not_ help his composure _at all_. With a violet pair of those ankle-high shoes Steve kind of hates, dark red fitted jeans with silver threads, some kind of sleeveless black long vest with red spider web designs that hung open to show off the Hulk silhouette printed on the front of her white shirt, a red and blue scarf with white stars and an Iron Man knitted cap, the girl looks like a walking Avengers merchandise stand, and Steve, at the very heart of him, is only human, and he _judges_ , okay?, and he could hardly believe that this was supposedly the person who responsible for the paint job on Bucky’s arm.

Honestly, _honestly_ , he _has_ to ask, and he does as soon as he’s near enough for her to hear. “Are you the one who repainted the arm in Tony’s lab this morning?” He manages to spit the question out without succumbing to the laughter threatening to bubble out, and good _Lord_ , but the girl, when she turns to look at him, has a splattering of bright pink over her mouth, chin and neck, some of it even dotting her nose, and it  _doesn't help_.

She stares at him for a moment, then says, “Yep, that was me.”

Steve would've gaped at her in disbelief, but he’s too busy trying to keep calm and carry on with questioning her after seeing _her pink teeth_ , _Jesus, Mary and Joseph_. “I—” He pauses briefly to stifle the unmanly giggle that almost escapes him. “ _Why?"_  he asks, the word stuttering embarrassingly off his tongue.

The girl sighs and smiles as she points at her pink coloring. “Revenge,” she says simply, and Steve realizes why Tony hadn't wanted to tell him why she would paint one of his arms in Captain America’s colors— _she’d gotten back at him_.

It was too much, and Steve falls back, waving a hand and trying but eventually giving up on actually _saying_ goodbye when all that comes out of his mouth is a spluttering laugh.

It takes him several long minutes to calm down and forcibly stop remembering why he kept laughing, and once he’s composed himself, he has to splash his face with some cold water to get the red flush out of his face. He wipes his face on the inside of his shirt, which is how he spies the lettering spaced nearly on his chest and he frowns, wondering why the words suddenly seemed so important.

_Are you the one who repainted the arm in Tony’s lab this morning?_

_Yep, that was me_.

His fingers flex in surprise, letting go of the shirt so it draws back against his body. “Oh, God.”

*

He’d dreaded telling Bucky, all too aware of his own opinion of _Yep, that was me._ , and it’s not until he’s talking about the girl that he realizes _he never even got her name_. Steve buries his face in his hands and thinks that if the girl _was_ his soulmate, she probably thought he was an idiot for not recognizing her words.

But honestly? It’s been five years since he woke up with the scribble on his chest and after a few _Yep, that was me._ -s from several people (including _Tony_ , and even though they weren't the first words he’d said to Steve, Steve still had that moment of panic because _this is Howard’s **son** , he **can’t** be my soulmate!)_ , he just stopped noticing, or stopped _actively_ noticing anyway, thus the utter lack of reaction he’d had to the girl saying it.

But she’d stopped and looked at him, hadn't she? When he said what he first said to her, she’d stopped, and then she’d sighed when he hadn't reacted and oh _no_ , what if she thought he was her soulmate and his lack of reaction told her it probably wasn't him?

 _Oh no_. He had to go find her. Had to confirm.

And then Bucky surprises him by suggesting he go figure out before Steve can say it, and Steve, he’s _happy,_ happy to get this chance to find out, happy to have his first soulmate’s blessing. He doesn't know what changed Bucky’s mind, but he’ll take it anyway, take it before it’s snatched away like a good dream gone bad.

He uses the time it takes to reach Dr. Foster’s floor to go through everything he could possibly say, from how to assess whether she _was_ his other soulmate to apologizing for not recognizing her and (and this was _the most_ important bit) trying to ascertain whether she was Bucky’s other soulmate. He knows Bucky doesn't think _Yep, that was me_. was the same person as _Tony Stark is a dead man._ , but Steve is hopeful. He’s hopeful because he wants his other soulmate to be Bucky’s other soulmate too, and through the messy scrawl on their chests, Steve thinks the letters a, e, m, s and t look the same to his artsy eye.

He’s hopeful because he doesn't want to lose Bucky to some other person when he’s just found him again.

*

It’s easier to take her seriously when he finds her again, but because she’s lost the cap and scarf and vest, there’s also nothing about her that prevents his heart from clenching with fear and anticipation when her blue eyes meet his and look at him like…

Like she _knows_.

“Can we talk?” he asks her, and he’s grateful to the other woman who answers for her and pushes the girl _who was possibly his other soulmate_ towards him, because he doesn't want to have this conversation with someone else present.

So he leads her back to the elevator, pressing the button to his floor without even registering that he did it.

He turns to her with the question _were my words your soulmark?_ , but there’s this look on her face that _tells_ him he’s right, she’s it, his other, and he just _knows_ already, so what comes out is “I’m sorry” instead. “I should’ve realized who you were as soon as you spoke.”

“Can I see it?” she asks bluntly, but then blushes a bright red that conveys her embarrassment at the question. “No wait, I’m sorry, I shouldn't have asked that, ugh, so rude, you don’t have to show it to me—”

But Steve, he wants to see too, and if he shows her his, then she’ll probably be more receptive to showing him hers, and with that idea in mind, he yanks at the back of his shirt and pulls it off.

“ _Ngh_ ,” goes the girl, the sound coming deep from her gut, her jaw clenching visibly as she takes him in and Steve, he’s gotten used to being admired and wanted because of his new physique so he doesn't quite react to her shift in body language. But _the second_ her eyes find the words on his chest, he feels himself react to her obvious desire for him, to the way her tongue peeks out between her pinked teeth like she wants to put it against _her words_ and _lick_.

 _Holy God_ , he thinks as she meets his eyes and sees the extent of her desire. He wants to touch her, wants to… to just _touch_ , but first—

“Your turn,” he says, and then forgets about being embarrassed by the obvious need in his tone when he literally _sees_ how her pupils blow so wide the blue of her eyes are almost gone. She’s an open book, this girl, and Steve wants to read every inch of her, wants to learn the depths of her and—

He refocuses as she moves, her hands coming up to lift her shirt, and he gets a glimpse of the words on her belly before she turns and shows him her back, and Steve, he’s _vindicated_ , because right there, on her skin, in his handwriting, are the very words he’d asked when he first saw her.

 _Are you the one who repainted the arm in Tony’s lab this morning?_ is the only thing he needs to see to give himself permission and he _touches_ , he touches and hears her whimper and her body shifts, her legs pressing together and the touching is suddenly not enough. She’s his _other soulmate_ and he’s _touching_ her and it’s _not enough_.

But he can’t. Not yet. Not when he doesn't know the answer to the other and most important question hanging invisibly between them.

So he reigns himself in and shakes his head and fights to lighten the heaviness of the moment. He finds the perfect way to do it too.

“Goddamn,” he gripes, honesty annoyed. “I can’t believe my first words to you have Tony Stark in them.”

The girl gives a startled laugh. “Not my fault,” she claims.

Steve smirks. “Kind of is,” he says, and it serves to remind her of _why_ he’d sought her out in the first place.

“Oh right,” she chuckles. “Sorry.”

Steve smoothed his hand from her back to her hip and carefully guides her to face him, his eyes seeking the words stretching across her waist, and when he sees that _Pink’s a nice color on you_. is written in a familiar scrawl, Steve can hardly contain his _glee_.

“Hi,” he murmurs with quiet happiness as he meets her gaze once more while smoothing her shirt back into place. “I’m Steve.”

“Hi Steve,” she returns in the same tone. “I’m Darcy.”

“Darcy,” he repeats, the name slipping easily off his tongue, “there’s someone I think you should meet.”

*

He’s had a few ideas of how things would go if _Yep, that was me_. was the same person as _Tony Stark is a dead man._ , and yes, _this_ is _definitely_ one of them. He’d expected it to look good, too look _sexy_ , but somehow, it’s _even better_ , and Steve’s mind goes through every fantasy he’s ever had of him and Bucky and their third and places Darcy right where she belongs and—

He has to press his forehead to against Darcy’s neck because the mere _promise_ of them together is _incredibly_ overwhelming, and if his hands feel unsteady as he smoothed them over _his_ words on their bodies, well, neither of his soulmates are in the position to notice, are they? And the identical moans produced by his nails scratching lightly over their skins are just a bonus that makes him _giddy_.

Bucky shifts and Steve, quickly picking up on what he wants, moves Darcy into his lap, and he has the sudden thought that this position right here was _just right_ , because here Steve is, his chest against his words on her back while Bucky fits himself against her front, pressing into his mark on her body, and he can’t help but wonder if Darcy would let them take her like this, the both of them crowding into her just like this, and then wonder turns to hope because _he_ _wants it_ , wants to feel her and Bucky at the same time, wants to hear the sounds she’ll make while they make her theirs and it's an even better fantasy than watching her reaction as Bucky pushes into her for the first time—

The sensation of fingers threading through his hair cuts into the fantasy spilling through his mind, and Steve, he doesn't even notice he’s been necking her until then, but Darcy clearly likes it because she’s trying to hold him in place. The angle he has is enough to let him see their kiss, to see Bucky’s tongue slide along hers before using his teeth to tug at her pinked bottom lip, and Steve, inspired, trails the tip of his tongue over the pulse point his lips were pressed against before scraping his teeth gently over the slicked area.

Darcy jerks in his lap and tilts her head back with an open-mouthed grunt, and Bucky _smirks_ as his eyes meet Steve’s before he starts nipping a path down to the other side of her neck. “Oh god,” Darcy says, starting to squirm in Steve’s lap as her fingers tighten and loosen in his hair, “oh god, I don’t— We shouldn't—”

Steve pulls away as soon as he hears ‘don’t’, but Bucky’s response to that is to move her higher on Steve’s lap, placing her directly onto Steve’s growing erection while he pulls back from Darcy and sweeps in to kiss Steve.

Steve doesn't even have the time to panic or fear that they’ll scare Darcy off, because he hears her whimper “Oh fuck, that’s hot” while grinding onto him. Steve relaxes further and moans in agreement as Bucky tugs at his hair and pulls back to nip at his chin.

“Feeling Steve up, sweetheart?” he asks, his words slightly muffled by her skin, and Steve and Darcy moan in affirmation. “That’s what’s waiting for you when you’re ready.” And then he moves away from Steve and pulls Darcy back to her previous position. “But we’re not gonna rush you, okay?”

Steve can’t see the expression on her face, but he can see Bucky’s earnest but also amused face and can’t help but shake his head and smile too, the annoyance that surged through him at the sudden stop fading in the wake of _this_.

Bucky’d always known just how to coax women into sex.

“You’re kind of an asshole, you know that?” Darcy asks, her voice breathy and annoyed.

Bucky’s smirk returns. “I know what I want,” he tells her. “And I know what Steve wants, and it’s obvious to me what _you_ want. And yes, _of course_ we’re gonna do everything we can to convince you, but it’s also gonna be your decision in the end.” He brushes his thumb over her cheek. “We ain't gonna push, doll. Just tempt.”

He sees Darcy shudder. “ _Evil_ ,” she whines, but also tugs Bucky back to her. “So. Freaking. Evil,” she says in between kisses and Bucky’s laughter. “And you,” she adds, turning her head to look at him. “You’re no help.”

“He’s plenty help,” Bucky disagrees before mouthing at her ear, making Darcy’s eyes flutter shut. “Remember this?” he adds, pushing her back up Steve’s lap. Darcy makes a strangled sound and opens her eyes to give him a wild look. “That’ll be plenty help. _Promise_.”

“ _Ngh_ ,” Darcy sounds again, and then hooks her arm over Steve’s neck for purchase. “Kiss,” she demands, and Steve surges forward to obey.

“Tastes amazing, doesn't she?” he hears Bucky ask, and Steve moans in agreement so he doesn't have to stop kissing her. “I wonder how she makes herself so delicious. Think she did it for us? Think she knew we’d meet her today? Gussied up for you and me?” He hums. “Maybe it’s the pink.”

Darcy sputters and pulls away laughing, and even Steve can’t stop the chuckle that escapes him. “You ass!” she laughs just as Bucky moves to kiss her, and she moans as he presses her back onto Steve’s shoulder. “Okay,” she says against Bucky’s lips. “Maybe I. can be. persuaded.”

Steve smiles and presses his lips to her ear. “Good.”

Darcy shudders. “Oh fuck,” she murmurs and turns her head to give him a kiss. “From you it’s _worse_.”

“You think that’s bad?” Bucky grins, meeting Steve’s eyes. “You ain't heard nothing yet.”

*

They don’t have sex with Darcy. Not because Darcy changes her mind, but because _Steve_ does.

“You’re killing me here,” Darcy complains.

“Seconded,” Bucky growls.

Steve doesn't budge. He wants to too, but he doesn't want Darcy to jump in and regret it. “We’re going to court you first,” he promises her.

Darcy’s eyes flash. “You can court me with orgasms.”

“I like that plan,” Bucky supports.

“Me too,” Steve nods. “And we’ll get to that.”

“Now?” Darcy asks insistently.

Bucky buries his face in her belly and laughs, making her squirm and giggle. “How can you say no to that?” he asks Steve.

Steve leans down to whisper in his ear and Bucky tilts his head in attention. “When I say court,” he says quietly, “I mean we’re going to build her up until a single touch is all it takes to make her wet. Until we’re all she thinks about when she's not with us. Until we’re all she _wants_. Until we can tell her we’ll tie her to this bed and keep her there for as long as we want and she doesn't even think twice about offering her hands up to us.”

Bucky groans and turns his face up for a kiss. “Man with a plan,” he teases aloud. “I like.”

“Is the plan _orgasms?”_ Darcy demands. “Cause you got me on this bed and _nothing’s happening_. I am currently a victim of false advertising.”

Bucky slants a look at him. “Orgasms don’t have to mean sex.”

“ _Excuse me?”_ Darcy asks indignantly.

Steve sighs. “All right fine. But just this once.”

*

It’s not just once.

*

The plan doesn't even last five days, because Darcy is surprisingly too adept at sussing out their weaknesses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you see what I had to deal with? I stopped where I could because I went on the chapter would never have been posted because I would just keep writing! _Steeeeve_.
> 
> Anyhoo, spoiler alert, but due to popular request, Tony will be up next and, OHMYTHOR I CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT I'VE DONE TO HIM OH SHIT! =))


	4. you think of the weirdest things when i play with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god. _Tony and Pepper_. Ugh, they're _worse_ than Steve, jeez! I'm sorry everyone, but it's _Tony and Pepper_ and they does what they want. I tried to keep it as PG as possible but Tony and Pepper just TOOK OVER! ARGHHH!!!

_Of course_  Tony’s seen her soulmark, he has a pool and she’s got the body for bikinis and  _have you seen Darcy Lewis?_  Ugh, anyway, digressing, he’s seen them, so of course he asks, and Lewis, she tells him she hates pink. She used to love it, because duh, soulmark, but then something happened sometime in college, a something she refuses to divulge that Tony doesn't actually want to speculate about but does anyway, because _this kid_ , jesus, she’s like a little puppy with big eyes who gets so happy when she sees _people_ and all she’s missing is the wagging tail.

Tony doesn't want to like her, but Pepper does, she _likes_  Lewis, and even though Tony can get a little jealous when Pepper stops watching him when Lewis walks into the room they're in, he can most definitely get behind the plans ( _fantasies)_  percolating inside Pepper's head. But Lewis and he and Pepper, they’re just _friends,_ and not for lack of trying on Tony’s part either, because Pepper likes gifts and Tony likes to give her gifts and, he repeats, _have you seen Darcy Lewis?_ But Lewis, she’s waiting she said, and Tony and Pepper can respect that, so they’re just friendly, okay?

The friendly is how the prank wars begin. Okay, so the prank wars begin because of _Barton_ , who’s the Porthos to their Athos and Aramis (Lewis being Aramis because hello, _two_ soulmarks), but whatever, the point is that they are in a war and it’s one against one against one, no teams or teaming up, and Tony, well, Tony usually regrets _nothing_ , okay?

Usually. But today he meets James Buchanan Barnes, Cap’s WW2 buddy-slash-former HYDRA assassin whose arm Tony agreed to repaint to appear skin-toned, and when he sees the familiar handwriting of Lewis on Barnes's back, Tony suddenly remembers the prank he’d left not two hours before in Lewis’s coffee maker and that it was _pink_ and there is now an _arm_ in his lab.

Tony’s a genius, okay? It isn't at all hard to put together what _arm + pink pellet + 'Tony Stark is a dead man.'_ will equal to.

“I think I know who Lewis’s soulmates are,” he tells Pepper later after he leaves the arm in the fabrication press, where it awaited whatever revenge plans Lewis had for it.

Pepper’s eyes roll up to see him, and she sighs, which feels _really_ nice. “You think of the weirdest things when I play with you.”

“You inspire me,” he shrugs, and that earns him a reward, and he strains up for more but Pepper, Pepper’s a tease.

It’s one of her best qualities.

“So tell me about them,” she prompts him, pulling away to lean her chin on one hand while the other continued to _play_.

Tony turns his mind back to several seconds ago to remember what they were talking about, and “Barnes and Rogers” is all he has to say to get Pepper’s eyes widening in surprise.

“Son of a bitch,” she scowls. “I really like Darcy.”

“I know,” Tony nods. “I’m constantly aroused and jealous every time you’re in the room with her.”

“Sir, Miss Lewis has found the pellet you stored in the coffee machine,” JARVIS says, and Tony just can’t help himself.

“Did you get the picture?” he asks.

“Of course,” JARVIS says, “but I’m afraid I must insist on delaying your viewing of it, as it would ruin the mood you and Miss Potts have built.”

“But I—”

Pepper puts her finger on his lips. “Quiet,” she tells him. “You've got more important things to do.”

(Her jealousy tastes delicious on his tongue.)

*

Later, he’s glad JARVIS had insisted on preserving the mood, because the sex had been _excellent_ and this, this would've made it not happen. Because when JARVIS brings up the picture, Tony’s eyes are met with the wide-eyed, open mouthed expression of a frozen Darcy Lewis, pink splattered over her mouth and front teeth and dripping down her chin and neck—

He bursts into laughter.

“S-save it!” Tony gasps, reaching out to balance himself on the table beside him. “I— I can’t— I can’t un— unsee that!”

“Sir,” JARVIS says, “I believe you should be aware that Miss Lewis has activated the fabrication press to paint Sergeant Barnes's arm.”

Tony snorts and wipes away a tear of joy. “That,” he tells JARVIS, “I already knew.”

*

He pays attention, of course, because this soul match? _He_  got the ball rolling, and this entitles him to a front row seat.

 _It’s destiny_ , Tony tells himself as he stares wide-eyed at the arm slowly getting covered in red and blue. _It’s destiny coming to get her and theoretically speaking, everything I do will push her towards them_.

And Tony, well, he’s Tony, so he makes the most of the experience.

“What the fuck happened to it?” Barnes demands, his dark tone ringing alarm bells in Tony’s mind.

There are three known facts about the soulmate aspect of life: a) everybody has at least one soulmate, b) soulmates are always born within each other’s lifetimes, c) it’s okay if a child doesn't have a soulmark at birth because they’ll get it eventually later on, and d) it’s a guarantee that you’ll eventually meet yours once their mark appears on your skin.

But see, here’s the problem with soulmates: not everybody gets to  _keep_  them.

If you take a look at the statistics, while 100% of the population who get their soulmarks get to meet their soulmates, only less than 70% actually stay together after meeting each other. Less than 1%, which is still  _a lot_ considering that this is a global statistic, meet their soulmates just before one of them dies.

Tony remembers that last bit out of nowhere and suddenly feels the need to lie to Barnes, so he does. He also makes Rogers go looking on his own instead of pointing him straight at Lewis, because he's not sure if Barnes is waiting for Cap outside and yeah, he's a little wary about sending the alleged _former_  assassin after the person who botched the arm job (heh) he wanted.

(He is, however,  _definitely_  going to show Lewis her handiwork. Cap’s reaction to Barnes’s arm was horrifying and priceless)

“Sir,” JARVIS speaks up, “Captain Rogers has found Miss Darcy.”

“Bring it up!” Tony says, a little excited. “Are you getting all this? All your recording functions are running properly?”

“Indeed, sir,” JARVIS replies as the live feed is brought up.

“Oh, jesus, her  _clothes_ ,” Tony laughs. “It's perfect. It's—”

He spends the next few minutes giggling to himself, fists clenched and wriggling with glee as he zooms in on Lewis’s _face_ when Cap says the exact words scrawled on her back, but he’s also incredibly disappointed when Cap doesn't notice hers (because _hell,_ Lewis, couldn't you have picked something better than _Yep, that was me._? Jeez!). Cap figures it out though, and he makes up for his lack of initial reaction with the elevator scene (which he was pretty sure they didn't even know was _hot_ , god, he was _definitely_ going to show that to Pepper tonight), and the fact that they and Barnes don’t come out of his room until dinnertime is telling.

He _hates_ that he couldn't activate the emergency clause to trigger the cameras in Cap’s bedroom, because he’s pretty sure they had sex and _have you seen Darcy Lewis?_ Tony’s pretty sure Pepper would've rewarded him if he got her a copy of that first _ménage à trois_.

*

(He only ever bothers Lewis about being the cupid who matched them and never does it where her two supersoldiers can hear it, because Barnes would kill him and Cap would hurt him. Lewis though, Lewis takes it like a champ. And yes, that was innuendo.)

(Like _hell_ they didn't sleep together on the first day. Pics or it happened.)

*

(He’s of the opinion that Barnes asking her to get trained up is a step too far, especially since it’s only been five days since they met.)

“Tell him I’ll make you a suit.”

“That’s very tempting.”

“I would've made you a suit if you slept with me and Pepper when you had the chance.”

“Look at how awkward that would've made living here now.”

“Good point. So, suit?”

*

“No suit.” She looks really disappointed about that too.

“That bastard,” Tony half-jokes. “Leave him. Come to the top floor. Or on it. In it?”

“I think I’m in love with him.”

He blinks. “That escalated quickly.”

Her lips quirk up. “It really got out of hand fast?”

“It jumped up a notch,” he agrees.

“It did, didn't it?” she continues, but it sounded a lot more wistful than joking, so Tony figures it was Serious Time.

“Look, kid,” he says, a little off-balanced with the position he was in and the weird feeling of actually _wanting_ to be in the position he was in. Which is not a sex joke, though it could be, but you know, he has to give the kid some advice, so that goes first.

What? She’s a cool kid, and Barnes, sure, he gets that Lewis needs to know how to handle herself in a bad situation, but he’s also being an asshole about this whole training thing.

“You can tap out of the mat if you think it’s too much for you.”

Lewis snorts. “That’s what she said.”

Tony knows. He and Foster have been talking too. Kind of hard not to when your assistant suddenly starts wearing cover up and walks around stiffly and gets her grump on without provocation. Tony would say she’s not getting fucked enough, but she has _two_ soulmates and that thought right there is all kinds of ridiculous.

“Hit the pause button, kid,” he advises. “Tell them you need a break.”

“I’ll think about it,” she tells him, which says a lot about her feelings, actually.

*

(Lewis doesn't call it quits.)

*

(After week ten, Tony figures it’s time to call in the big guns.)

*

So he mentioned the statistical analysis of soulmates on a global scale, right? Well that, that was incomplete. That 1% of the population who watches their soulmates die? They're part of the 4-point-something percent that makes up the tragedy-ridden population, the ones who lose their soulmates to accidents and not-accidents, who lose their soulmates too damn early in life.

And after are the 10% that don’t meet their soulmates until _after_ they stop holding out hope and decide to marry someone else and have kids with their non-soulmate spouse. It's really no wonder that Tony thinks these people are idiots, because the soulmark, it's a  _guarantee,_ okay? It's a  _promise_ that there's someone out there for you, so why botch it up by marrying someone else?

The remaining 20-something percent though, those are the people who decide to separate from their soulmates due to varying reasons, and from what data Tony's gathered, most do it because they’re unhappy with their living situation (because that’s what happens when you jump right in and try so fucking hard not to look back even when you know something’s gotta give sooner or later).

Tony thinks that Lewis might fall under that last category if something doesn't change.

Pepper agrees.

“Or,” he adds as he traces lines into her palm, “we could always, y’know, _help them along_. If that’s what you want.”

“Don’t be coy with me,” Pepper says. “You can say sabotage.”

See, this is one of the things he loves about Pepper. He doesn't have to hide his selfishness from her and she doesn't judge him when he expresses it. Oh, she reprimands him for them, sure, but only when there are people who expect her to do it, because no one else _could_.

“Sabotage,” he rolls the word in his mouth. “Such a nice word, isn't it?”

“It is,” she agrees, giving him a fond look. “But no. After all the trouble you went through to set them up—” Tony can’t help it, he _preens_ , “—it’d be such a waste to let them fall apart.”

“Pepper Potts,” he murmurs, “the woman with a heart of gold.”

“Red and gold,” she corrects him, pulling his hand to her lips and kissing the center of his palm. His chest tightens and swells with _feelings,_ and Tony, he’s going to follow this woman to the ends of the Earth and beyond, okay?, no questions asked.

“All right,” he tells her. “What do we do?” (Okay, so maybe with some questions asked.)

Pepper pats his hand. “Leave it to me.”

*

Whatever Pepper does, works. The training doesn't stop, but within the week, Lewis has lost the bags under her eyes and Barnes has started to visit her outside of training and their bedroom. The first time he shows up to visit Lewis, he brings her candy hearts, and Lewis, it’s not that she melts, but her shoulders lose tension and her eyes twinkle under the fluorescent lights. (And it looks like the diet she was under had been lifted too, hallelujah.)

“So is he fucking you again?” he asks Lewis after Barnes leaves.

She makes a face. “How long have you known we haven’t been sexing it up? Does everybody know?”

Tony had just been guessing, actually, but this was confirmation of it. “I dunno,” he shrugs. “It was obvious to me since you’re always here.”

But now that the cat’s out of the bag, it explains why she’d been growing steadily despondent in the training videos he watched. Barnes hadn't been putting out, and Lewis had been feeling… ostracized? Yeah, that was probably it. Hell—

“Did he even touch you since?” he gestures abstractly, and Lewis, bless her, she gets him, and the groan is answer enough.

Wow. Barnes was just one hell of a grade-A douchebag. Lewis was a fucking saint for even wanting to put up with him.

“So?” he prods her. “Sex?”

“Ugh, _no_ ,” she grumbles. “He’s trying to recreate those first days we had.”

The poor, poor girl. “I've told you two things many, many times,” he says, “one, you should’ve stuck with me and Pep, and two, pics or it happened.”

He ducks the conversation hearts she throws at his head.

*

“Look what you did,” Tony tells her, twirling her long hair through his fingers.

“I’m looking,” Pepper replies, and he thinks she never takes her eyes off the lush body getting pounded into the mat.

“You’d think Barnes would remember the gym has surveillance cameras,” he says, and it's kind of convenient that the angle they're in lets the camera capture teasing glimpses of Lewis's best features (all of them, they're all the best, seriously, that girl, _ngh)_.

“He knows,” she tells him. “Why do you think they’re there?”

Tony pauses. “Did Barnes just give you a sex tape?” He frowns. “Should I be worried? Because he has Lewis and you've got a particular weakness for that girl.”

“Like you don’t,” Pepper counters, smirking. “And besides, this is his _thank you_ gift for saving their relationship.”

“Ah. Well, that’s okay then.” A pause. “D’you think they’d make one that has Rogers in it?”

“I’ll put in a request.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? See what just happened? It's devolving! I'm losing control of this story, _omg_.  
>  And Pepper, shit, beautiful, lovely, _adult_ Pepper, she wrote herself like a boss, twining around Tony like a clingy vine. I even had to cut her scene out of Tony's POV because it's too _filthy_ and if filthy is what I'm going to do, then I'm going to do it with our favorite trio. Ugh, my _brain_.
> 
> Give it to me straight, should I like, take this chapter out? Because I feel like I should, ugh, I dunno, I feel weird about this.  
> *Update: Okay, okay, I won't take it out, and WOW, I honestly didn't think this would appeal to anyone, much less EVERYone. Tony and Pepper thank you =))


	5. sweetheart, where’s your toothbrush?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: this chapter cycles through the emotions people go through when their emotionally-stunted former assassin boyfriend is being a dick, like depression and serious self-esteem issues and sex issues and anger issues (Darcy-anger issues, not HULK-ones). Also, Darcy confronts Bucky, which has so many feels in it, I was crying while I was writing (and then _I_ got angry, see notes below for reason).
> 
> *Edited: But no, seriously, if you've got issues with the issues above, don't read this chapter ~~first. I'll put up the proper tags if they're needed, if not, then you'll see it on the next update~~. ~~Because~~ And the whole thing about this being five chapters? That's a lie now. Pepper made me a liar.

(“You can _say_ thank you.”

“Must I?”

“Yes, yes you must.”

“… _thank you, Tony_.”

“You’re welcome. So how was it?”

“How was what?”

“The _sex_ , Lewis! It’s been a week, I’ve been waiting a week, and you haven’t said anything about _the_ _sex!”_

“Jesus, what are you, a twelve year old girl? And we’ve only been having sex for two days, so—”

“Bullshit, Lewis, I call bullshit, two days _my ass_ and _fuck you_ , I’m at _least_ thirteen.”

“You _wish_ you could fuck me and _yes_ , two days, your ass is mine and you get to tell Pepper that.”

“Pepper wouldn’t mind, she’d just have you sign something so you can timeshare or something. And pics, Lewis, pics or it happened.”

“Oh, bite me.”

“Really? _Where?”)_

*

It’s shockingly easy, this being in love with your soulmate thing. Probably because she’s spent her whole life knowing they were out there and thinking they were waiting for the day she meets them too.

But really? The only things Steve had in common with _any_ of the versions of _Are you the one who repainted the arm in Tony’s lab this morning?_ she’d imagined was that he was an artist and that he probably worked nearby, just like James is only a little bit like the versions of _Pink’s a nice color on you_ she’d thought up, which, to be honest, was that he was a handsome ass, which nobody could blame her for after _Pink’s a nice color on you. I like it_ tried to get her to blow him in an alley after just a couple of drinks and _no_ , she is _not_ telling Steve _or_ James about that or any of the other almost-encounters she’s had, because with her luck, they’ll actually manage to find the guys and James, well, he’s… _intense_ about her, which is nice, seriously, _seriously_ nice, but Darcy _really_ doesn’t want it to be on her conscience if he goes a-huntin’, _oh god,_ _Darcy what, a-huntin’, really brain?_ And that was on top of them actually _not_ waiting for her to meet them, what with being stuck frozen in an airship under acres of ice and getting brainwashed by a Nazi cult that should’ve died out in World War Two but didn’t.

So it might just be because they’re, y’know, _awesome_. Or _maybe_ this whole soulmate thing is just _meant_ to be this easy. Right? Because there has to be a reason that this person or person _s_ were the people _fated_ to be with you.

Irony was at work, she realizes, when just _hours_ after she thought of how easy things have been going between them, James springs over her and puts a knife to her throat to convince her to start taking self-defense lessons from him. Ugh, her _life_.

*

“James,” she pants and opens her eyes. “James, I want you.”

“You do?” he murmurs, and she opens her mouth under his, moaning as she feels Steve slide his warm hands down her body once more. “Tell me how much.”

“So, so much,” she obliges, chasing him as he pulls back to nip at her upper lip.

“You just had Steve,” he reminds her, nuzzling his nose against hers. “Wasn’t that enough?”

“Yes,” she says, both to his question and to encourage Steve to keep his fingers where they’d gone. “But I— Oh! Oh god! Ungh, I— I want you t— Hanh, _god_ , James, please, I want you too.” She looks him in the eye. “I want you too.”

James stares down at her like she’s an epiphany made flesh.

And then he slides his lips over hers, slides his body between her thighs and slides himself inside her so easily, she can’t help but think that _this right here_  is the reason why it was his mark she had been born with.

*

The downward spiral starts after that. Steve, he’s awesome as ever, but James becomes this hard-hearted taskmaster and Darcy, it doesn't take her long to realize that James is using a reward system on her. With _sex_.

“Maybe,” he’d say from his place beside the bed while Steve has her under him or over him or in front of him. “We’ll see tomorrow.”

But tomorrow never comes and _grrrrd_ , all Darcy wants to do now is gouge his _eyes_ out. They don’t have sex for _months_ and that just _pisses_ Darcy off because sex has become a reward for doing well on her training and _again_ , they don’t have sex for _months_.

No one can blame her if she takes that to heart, and these days? She takes everything to heart. Her self-worth takes a massive hit because of him, because he criticizes her form and her speed and _also_ , he has her on a new food-intake regimen, which, on her mean days (which eventually becomes _every_ day), she takes to mean that she’s too _fat_ for him.

Oh don’t get her wrong, she _tries_ , tries too hard maybe, but she tries to rekindle that old ease between the two of them, slants a flirtatious one-liner at him now and again, but while he shoots back a retort that implies an interest in taking things further, he never follows through and Darcy, what’s she to do but keep thinking what she’s thinking?

Sometimes she wants to just _scream_ at him, wants to _hit_ him, wants to _quit_ , wants to go back to the old room she had before moving into Steve’s bedroom.

And Steve, yes, he gets the brunt of it, mostly the frustrated sexing, but sometimes the snappy irritation too and he _always_ sleeps in between them now. Darcy starts to snap at everyone because _work_ and _training_ and _oh god muscles I can’t **even**_ and god, but she _misses_ the old James, the one before this whole training shit started, the one who _definitely_ wouldn’t mind if she burst into the room while he and Steve are fucking and would fold her into them like she… well, like she belonged.

Because that’s the rub. Without him, without his approval, she doesn’t feel like she _belongs_ anymore.

*

She makes the mistake of telling Jane her angsty feels over the ice cream she sneaks into her strict new diet and Jane, she’s the best, y’know? She gives Darcy this hug that makes her feel a bit better and is _totally_ supportive of her not-so-passive-aggressive desires.

“Leave them,” she advises, but she’s only half-serious, Darcy thinks. “Go find someone else. Lots of people manage without their soulmates. Hell, look at Tony and Pepper. They’re not soulmates but they’re great together.” She slants a look at Darcy. “Weren’t they inviting you to join them? Why don’t you try that out?”

Darcy laughs, low and incredibly jealous. “Really?” she says derisively. “You want me to get in-between _the_ power couple of the planet?”

Jane shrugs and steals the spoon out of her hand. “They want you there, so why not?” she says, then uses the stolen spoon to steal some ice cream.

“Because they’re complementary, Jane!” she snaps. “They’re— They’re _better_ than soulmates, because they’re _not_ and they make it _work_ and _look_ at my relationships right now. I’m just,” she huffs a bitter little laugh, “I’m just gonna mess them up too.”

“Pardon me, Miss Lewis, Doctor Foster,” JARVIS pipes up before Jane can reply, “but Captain Rogers is about to enter the room.”

“Thanks, J,” Darcy says just as the door opens to admit Steve and, she grimaces, Darcy’s food (which is not actually _food_ , it’s that gross gunk James has her drink to build up muscles and repair damage and ugh, she _hates_ that thing).

“Hi, Doctor Foster,” Steve greets as he enters.

“Steve, really, it’s Jane,” she insists.

“Sorry,” he says, “still feels a little disrespectful.”

Jane waves that off and _oh thank god Jane was holding the spoon_. “Hungry?” Steve asks as he slides the _thing_ across the table to her.

“Not for that,” she replies, making a face.

Steve smiles and jeezus, that is _not_ fair. “It’s for your body, Darce,” he says for the nth time since they started this little ritual. “It’ll help you get over the muscle aches faster.”

“You say that, but I don’t actually feel it,” she complains, but she’s already picking the drink up, because _his face_ , ugh, it’s too stupidly handsome for her own good. She finishes the drink quickly, because it’s horrible and she doesn’t want to draw her agony out like the first few times, and then tilts her lips up. “Kiss.”

Steve smiles again and obliges, though he keeps it strictly PG for Jane’s sake. “I love you,” he tells her, and ugh, what else is Darcy to do but swoon?

“Love you too,” she replies, and then she sinks to her elbows and joins Jane in watching his ass leave the room.

“Thor,” Jane says.

“Mm, but Steve’s _ass_ …”

“You lucky bitch.”

“So, _so_ lucky.”

*

Jane’s words give her something to think about though. There _are_ others who don’t get a happily ever after with their soulmates, and Darcy, she starts _researching_. JARVIS, always a big help, starts compiling articles from support groups and videos posted on the Internet, and after a week of sifting through the copious amounts of clippings JARVIS had dumped on her work tablet, Darcy joins one of the online support groups and starts _talking_.

It’s easy to share things with strangers. It’s even easier to share things when you’re anonymous or hiding under an alias. The ability to incorporate both _and_ be able to share things with people who’ve gone through or are going through with similar circumstances? The easiness is just _ridic_.

Darcy makes several friends online, though only one claimed to have been in her exact position years before. ‘Marie’ had two male soulmates, ‘John’ who was like James and ‘Henry’ who was like Steve, and both had been in the same military outfit in Afghanistan, where they met each other years before. Marie, a college student, had met both men after they were honorably discharged, and immediately fell into a sexual relationship with them. Their problems were slow to arise, but it quickly became evident that John had a heavy hand which wasn’t helped by his PTSD, and Henry couldn’t always help because he had limited mobility in his leg. Marie’s friends eventually intervened, encouraging her to leave them, and she ultimately did.

Marie suggested that she transition slowly, advising Darcy to reach out to her parents or friends and ask if she could spent a few days with them. It would give her a legitimate excuse to leave and start taking some of her things out of their room, and if ‘Darcy’s John’ was abusive and controlling, he still couldn’t tell her not to go if people were expecting her to arrive.

James… He wasn’t like that at all. He wasn’t abusive nor controlling, he just happens to be in a position where he can hurt her and direct her to do things—

Okay, yeah, she can see why Marie would think that of him. But no, that wasn’t her problem with James. Her problem was that he was treating her like… like she wasn’t his soulmate. Like he didn’t love her.

Which he did. Does. She knows he does. He wouldn’t be personally involved in her training or watch her when she's with Steve or sleep in the same bed as her if he wasn’t.

Right?

Still, a few days later, the encouragement letters she gets not just from Marie, but from many others, makes Darcy _seriously_ start to consider moving out of their bedroom, enough that she actually _does_ something about it.

“Darcy!” Pepper says, smiling up at her warmly. “Come, sit down! What brings you to my area of the tower?”

She sits down and opens her mouth to tell Pepper she wants her old room back, and her voice completely fails to deliver the message.

Pepper, she’s a sweetheart, and she waits patiently for Darcy produce _words_. And then, because she’s the kind of person who likes to help people, and maybe because she reserves most of that patience for Tony, and also because she’s a little ( _lot_ ) scary sometimes, says, “Is this about you wanting to move back to your old room?”

Darcy’s teeth click painfully as she shuts her mouth and _stares_.

Pepper’s smile never changes. “JARVIS gave me a heads up, I hope you don’t mind.”

Darcy minds. Darcy minds very much, and she would say so if her body would just _comply_ with what she wants it to _do_.

“Darcy, of course you can have your old room back,” Pepper tells her kindly.

Say thank you, Darcy.

“You’re welcome, Darcy,” Pepper says, patting her hand, before taking it in hers and brushing her thumb over Darcy’s palm. “And you’re always welcome with us too.”

 _Christ_.

It doesn’t help that the very afternoon she decides to take something back to her old room, like maybe a few clothes or pieces of jewelry, she walks in on them fucking. The fact that she immediately backs out of the room?

That makes her mind up for her.

*

It takes them two days to notice, and by then, Darcy’s got most of her things back in her old room. It helped that most of them had been in storage and not actually inside their room, but she _did_ transfer her great-grandmother's jewelry box from its place in one of the drawers she’d claimed to the dresser in her room, which to her was pretty damn symbolic.

“Hey, Darce,” Steve says thickly as he pokes his head out of the bathroom, toothpaste staining his lips, “where’s your toothbrush?”

 _In my makeup bag in my bag_ , was the correct answer.

“Threw it out,” she lies, turning back to her tablet as she did, James’s lecture about her eyes dilating when she fibs flashing through her mind. “Getting a new one.”

“Why?”

Darcy blinks and looks up at James. “Standard hygiene maintenance,” she answers. “Replace your toothbrush every three months and after a bout of sickness.”

“Oh,” Steve says, looking down at his toothbrush and Darcy wrinkles her nose and giggles.

“I’ll get you both new ones when I replace mine,” she tells them before she can even think about it. “But I highly doubt you need to, what with the serum and all.”

“Thanks,” Steve smiles, then moves back into the bathroom to spit and rinse, and Darcy takes that as permission to sink back into the rhythm of sorting through Tony’s e-mails.

“Miss Lewis,” JARVIS speaks up softly, “I have an incoming package addressed to you. Shall I have it delivered here or to your room?”

“To my room,” she replies distractedly, swiping the current e-mail into the _For Pepper_ folder.

“Darcy,” Steve says from his place in the doorway, voice sounding strangled, and she freezes in realization and thinks, _Crap_.

“I thought you gave your room up,” James says, and Darcy keeps her eyes on the tablet, swiping another e-mail out even though she hasn’t read it through.

“Hm?” she says, not looking up. “No, I kept it for storage.” And _then_ she looks up. “My stuff’s still there,” and she glances around and gestures to the room and plasters a smile on her face, “not exactly gonna fit everything in here, are we? So,” she shrugs and turns back to the tablet, “kept it.”

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck_ , went her brain the whole time.

“Sweetheart,” Steve says slowly, “where’s your toothbrush?”

 _Ugh, fuuuuuck_ , went her brain again, and she tells it to shut the fuck up she needs to _think_.

Darcy rolls her eyes. “Oh my _god_ , really?” she asks him, raising an eyebrow. “You find out I kept my old room and you wanna know if I _really_ threw my toothbrush out?”

James, by then, has stood up and crossed the room to pull the closet open, and Darcy fervently thanks her ass for being lazy about moving her clothes. Steve, who had followed James, sighs and relaxes, and Darcy is suddenly struck by the realization that _this is an opportunity_. (Later, she’ll realize just how fucked up it was that she thought it was an _opportunity_ , instead of just laughing at them like she would’ve ten weeks ago.)

“Wow,” she says flatly as they turn to her, Steve with a slightly guilty expression, “your confidence in me is _seriously_ inspiring.” At that, even James’s face falls, and Darcy’s heart skips a beat at the sight of it before she ruthlessly quashes the sentiment. “Y’know what?” she continues as she rolls off the bed, sticking to the impromptu plan. “I think my room coming up is a good thing.” She sticks her feet into her slippers and slides the tablet under her arm. “It reminded me that I have somewhere to sleep when you’re being _assholes_.”

“Sweetheart,” James— _James_ —says, and last week, that would’ve been enough to keep her from walking out the door, because he hasn’t called her that for some time now.

Last week. Today, here and now?

It doesn’t even make her falter.

*

(She cries when she gets to her room. Throws the tablet and breaks it, then throws something else at the wall and _screams_ , and then throws something else and something else and something else and _yells_ and _howls_ and _rages_ and throws _something else_ until she runs out of steam and staggers to the corner and just _sits_ there, _crying_ and she _hates_ it, she hates _him_ for turning her into something she’s always thought she would never be.

She’d never thought of herself as _weak_ until he tells her she _is_.)

*

A shower does wonders for her ragged appearance, and makeup hides the rest. She goes to work late and is thankful that Jane doesn’t seem to have noticed her absence and dumps the coffee she finds waiting on her desk into the trash bin and buries herself in the legalese Pepper sends her way when she discovers that Jane has nothing for her to do that’ll keep her mind occupied.

The only thing noteworthy that happens is that Steve doesn’t come by with her prerequisite drink of doom, but Darcy’s glad for that. There was a pit in her stomach that eased when he didn’t show up, and the moment she realizes she’s been dreading his visit, the urge to cry overtakes her again. And then she’s angry, so angry, because she’s been crying for _hours_ and she’s _tired_ of crying.

And then she sags into her seat and closes her eyes and buries her face in her hands, because she’s tired of being angry too.

“Yo, Darce,” Clint’s voice rings out, and Darcy rearranges her face into something more smiley before looking up. “Wanna sneak out for some Italian pizza?”

Her smile becomes a little more genuine. “Sure,” she says, letting him sling an arm over her shoulder and lead her to the elevators. “You’re buying.”

“Ugh, why do I do this to myself?” he bemoans, and she laughs a little, feeling much better already.

Italian pizza turns into Italian pizza and pasta and gelato and _drinks_ , _lots of drinks_ , and if she stumbles into the elevator wall when Clint lets her go, then that’s his fault, not hers, because _clearly_ , she’s the one who can’t be trusted to walk when she’s like this. Actually, she can’t be trusted to do much when she’s like this, like keep her mouth shut and her hands to herself.

“Y’know, for guy who sometimes goes,” she whistles (well, _tries_ , she never could whistle without putting her fingers in her mouth) while making a circle by her ear, “y’re pretty cut.” And then she gropes his biceps. “ _Ngh_.”

“Thanks,” he replies, smirking as he flexes his arm muscles for her.

“Yum,” she says, and Clint snorts and wiggles his mouth like he’s fighting back a laugh. Mm, his _mouth_ … “So funny,” she tells him, tracing her finger along his top lip.

“What is?” he asks, lips brushing against her fingers.

“Your lips,” she answers. “They’re shaped like your bow.”

“Never noticed,” he replies. “Are you sure?”

She nods and hums. “Positive.”

The elevator _dings_ open, and Clint slides a hand around her waist. “Come on, drunky-monkey,” he says quietly. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Clint doesn’t even pause when he sees the destruction in the room, and Darcy takes it all in with all the attention of a drunken person. “Such a waste,” she says when her eyes land on the big wooden jewelry box lying broken on the floor, her collection of accessories spilling out like the guts of the violently vivisected. “Was my great-grandmother’s.”

“Shouldn’t’ve thrown it at the wall then,” he tells her as they pass it by.

“Didn’t realize,” she confesses. “So angry.” He lowers her to the bed. “Clint,” she says, eyes burning, “m’tired. M’so tired.”

“I know, babe,” he nods, brushing her hair back. “I know. Gonna make it better, okay?”

“Stay with me?” she asks, and he rolls onto the bed with her, letting her slot herself against his side. It didn’t feel right, but Darcy could sprawl out over him in a way she hasn’t done in weeks and that makes it better. “Thank you.”

“No problem, babe,” he says. “Was made to be huggled.”

She snorts.

*

Nobody can blame Darcy if she freaks out when she wakes up with Clint there, but then she sees they’re on _clothes on_ mode and she freaks out a little less, because just because clothes are on _does not_ mean nothing happened, and Darcy + lots of alcohol = hazy memory, okay?, ergo the freak out.

She has soulmates, okay?, and she’s not a cheater. Even when things are this bad, she would _never_ ever _ever_ cheat and this? This is _bad_ , because this is _Clint_ , Clint the _Avenger_ , who is the co-Avenger of _one of her soulmates_ and oh _god_ she’s going to break up the Avengers—

“Stop thinking so loud, oh my god,” Clint says, almost giving her a heart attack. “I can literally _feel_ you freaking out.”

“Please tell me we didn’t have sex,” she blurts out.

She feels his body shaking before the laugh comes tumbling out. “Darcy, fuck, I wouldn’t touch you like that with a ten-foot pole,” he tells her, which, _ouch_ , but whew! So relieved, _oh my god_ , this is good, this is fantastic, she’s not gonna break up the Avengers, woohoo! “Rogers would crush every bone in my body and then Barnes would bury me alive.”

Aaand _now_ she remembers why she got so drunk. Thank you, Clint. So helpful.

“I think I totally abandoned work yesterday,” she says instead of commenting on his conjecture of her soulmates’ potential reactions to the hypothetical discovery of her and Clint allegedly not-sleep sleeping together. “Crap. I didn’t finish vetting the documents Pepper sent me.”

His arm moves, and despite the dim lighting, she can see he’s waving a hand. “Pepper adores you,” Clint says. “Just sleep with her and she’ll forgive you.”

Darcy almost chokes on her own spit. “You _know?”_ she asks reflexively, then shakes her head and calls herself an idiot. “Of course you know, jeezus, ugh.”

Clint laughs again. “Pepper likes to leave her subtlety in the elevator,” he tells her. “She’s as bad as Tony—that’s why they work so well together.”

Darcy considers this carefully and wonders if that’s why James and she don’t mesh as well as she and Steve or he and Steve do. Steve is like, half James and half Darcy. He’s a little lost and a little old fashioned and a soldier and from a different era, but he’s also headstrong and stubborn and sassy and dirty and okay, maybe James was all that too but he has been _like that_ since—

“I was gonna kiss you in the elevator.”

Darcy blinks. “Um?”

“My eyes are my best features, Darce,” he says in that same quiet, steady tone. “I see everything.”

Air rushes out of her lungs like she’d been punched. “Clint…” she starts, but has no idea what to say because she doesn’t understand what he means, doesn’t get what he’s not saying except maybe he knows she’s thinking of _leaving her_ _soulmates_.

“They’re not treating you right,” he continues. “Barnes isn’t and Steve lets him and that’s on them both. And I’m angry at them,” he tells her, “cause you’re my friend, Darce, and I see what they’re doing to you. Barnes, he’s on my shitlist for sure, but Steve, he’s right there at the top of it, because he’s got his reservations and he’s right there between the two of you and he’s not doing anything to fix this thing with you and Barnes.”

Her throat dries and her nose tingles and her eyes start to sting. “Clint…”

“So I was going to,” he says. “I was going to do something. Get you drunk, because you’re a flirty drunk and I knew that. Kiss you somewhere a camera was, walk you to your room, spend the night. Let them think we fucked.”

Darcy sucks in a ragged breath and exhales a sob, because she doesn’t remember this and that’s just so… so… so _fucked up_. “ _Jesus Christ_ , Clint.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his grip on her tightening in what was unmistakably a hug. “I didn’t, Darce, I didn’t, because I _saw you_ and I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t pile more shit on top of your issues and I… I’m so sorry I planned to.”

He planned to. He _planned_ to. He came to her, invited her out, got her drunk… _He_ _planned to_.

“You son of a bitch,” she tells him wetly, fisting her hand in his shirt and pressing her face into his shoulder. “You son of a _bitch_.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, sounding almost as hurt as she feels. He sniffles and pulls her in tighter. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t ever— Don’t you _ever_ do that,” she gasps, feeling the tears slip, one down her temple and the other sliding crossing the bridge of her nose and over her eye, both sliding to where her skin touched his shirt. “Don’t you ever do that to _me_. I can’t— Not from you. Not _you_.”

“I won’t,” he promises her. “I won’t. Never again. I won’t, I promise.

I promise.”

*

Clint’s a busy guy. Most of the time he’s off training, sometimes with Natasha, but most of the time with just himself. Erik, he told her that the Tesseract had shown them things, and that was how he knew the Convergence was coming before, how he knows most of what he knows now, and he says that it probably showed Clint something too, and judging by the way Natasha sometimes asks him to teach her things, Darcy figures the Tesseract showed him new fighting skills or some such.

But digressing, Clint’s a busy guy, so Darcy rarely sees him aside from the sporadic visits and their on-going prank war with Tony.

Suddenly though, suddenly he’s there, _all the time_. After that first visit that led to her drunk and him _trying to help_ her, he’s never not in the same room as her. He’s with her at breakfast, at her training sessions with James, at lunch, at the lab, at dinner, and then he invites himself into Steve and James’s bedroom and catches up with the two supersoldiers until she’s asleep.

It’s a relief, honestly. In the wake of her decision to move back into her room, Darcy had lost the desire to have sex, even with Steve, even though she still opens her legs for him and get off alongside him (It sounds so bad when she lays it out like that, like she's role-playing as a blowup doll, because she's not, or at least, she tries not to be, but ever since she admitted to herself that she wasn't happy with her soulmates anymore, it was like there was this yawning, gaping hole inside her, one that made itself known whenever Steve started to touch her. It never lasted longer than a moment, but it was there, and every time she felt it open up inside her, she'd look at James, who never looked at her face when she was looking at him), and Clint’s tactics helps her avoid making excuses to stop Steve from even trying anything.

He’s even there in the morning, knocking on the door just as Steve starts getting handsy and JARVIS, he’s a _peach_ , and she thanks them both after Clint says he has JARVIS monitoring them, which _should_ be creepy, but Darcy’ll take what help she can get.

This time, it takes four days for Steve to say something.

“Not again,” he grumbles as Darcy pulls away. “He was _just_ here.”

“He was not _just_ here,” Darcy tells him as she pads barefoot to the door. “That would mean he was watching us sleep and _that_ would be creepy. Sup, Clinton?” she greets as the door opens.

“I need your help,” he says, eyes wide. “I did something to Tony’s robot and it died and nothing I do will wake it up. JARVIS promised to hold off on tattling on me if I could get it working again but I have no idea how to do that—”

“And you think I do?” she asks shrilly. “Who was it?”

“Uh…”

“ _You don’t even know?”_ she shrieks. “JARVIS!”

“It was U, Miss Lewis,” JARVIS replies.

She gasps, then narrows her eyes at Clint. “ _You_ ,” she snarls.

He gives her his best puppy-dog eyes. “Help me.”

“Thanks,” she says later once they’re in the elevator.

“What’re friends for?” he says.

*

Things come to a head during dinner, and she knows the inevitable has come when she walks out of the bathroom and finds Clint nowhere in sight.

“Crap,” she exclaims, stopping mid-step. “I forgot to tell Jane about the— _ngh_ ,” she groans, hurrying to her bag, slipping her makeup bag in before rooting around for her phone.

“Tony’s robot wasn’t tampered with,” Steve says.

Darcy swallows and continues to rummage through her things. “Good,” she replies. “He’ll never know it was.”

“Stop it,” James tells her. “Just stop…” he sighs, and she closes her eyes, clutching her phone as she gears herself up to face him.

“Darcy, are you leaving us?” She twitches at the accusation, because the hurt in Steve’s voice was expected. The hurt it brings _her_ wasn’t.

She takes a deep breath and tells herself to stop, to stop pretending, stop running, stop being afraid. This was it. It was here. The time was now, they knew, and Darcy, she’s tired of lying. She’s tired of… She’s _tired_.

“Yes.” She raises her head, opens her eyes, turns around to look at them. “Yes, I’m leaving you.”

Steve’s face crumples, and James’s jaw clenches as he looks down at the floor. “You don’t have to,” he says quietly. “I’ll go.”

The idea of him leaving Steve is so preposterous she can’t help but snort and laugh and shake her head a little. “No,” she replies, looking down to drop her phone back in her bag before swinging her gaze back to them. “I’m going. I already moved most of my things back to my room. Some of my clothes are all that’s left in here.”

To their credit, they don’t ask her why she wants to leave. They do, however, try begging her to stay.

“Darcy,” James says, a pained expression on his face, “we— _I_ can do better. I can— We don’t have to do the training, we can figure something else out—”

“You think—” She huffs and chuckles, because for all that they knew it was their fault, they still hadn’t figured out _why_ it was their fault. Men. “You think this is because you hand me my ass in the gym every morning?”

“Isn’t it?” Steve asks, looking up at her from where he’d been giving the floor his shame-face. “This started because of the training—”

“No, it didn’t.” They frown, confused, and Darcy huffs again and smiles bitterly. “It’s not the training. I like the training. I like that it— that it means, or I like to _think_ that it means, that you trust me to take care of myself. I think—” She laughs, even as she feels tears string at her eyes, “I think that’s the only difference between me and Bella Swan.” James doesn’t get the reference, but Steve does if the face he makes and the glance he gives James is any indication. “Yeah,” she nods at him. “Yeah, I went there.”

“What is it then, if not the training?” he asks.

She takes a fortifying breath. “James.”

The man swallows and nods. “I hurt you.”

“So much,” she admits, and it makes him flinch.

“I won’t,” he says. “Not anymore. I… I’ll switch out with Natasha. If you still want the training then she can take over, and I won’t hurt you—”

She’s already shaking her head by then. “No,” she tells him, “that’s not it. That’s not how you… James,” she exhales harshly, “when was the last time you _touched_ me?”

He frowns. “I touch you all the time.”

“My ankle, my leg, my knee, my belly, my hand, my arm, my shoulder, my hair—” She breathes a laugh. “I keep count. I keep watch. I take note. I drive myself _crazy_ trying to convince myself they mean something to you, but some days I can’t even convince myself of _that_ —”

“They _do_ ,” James tells her, taking a step forward, hands coming up, as if to show her he’s unarmed (ha! Unarmed, jeezus). “They mean something to me, sweetheart—”

“ _Really?”_ she asks him, scrunching her face up as to try and contain the tears getting ready to fall. “Because you haven’t _touched_ me, James, it’s been _months_ and I don’t— I didn’t _know_ if it’s _you_ or _me_ that’s the problem at first, but clearly,” she gestures to Steve, “clearly you have no problem being with Steve. So it must be me, right?”

“ _No_ ,” James denies vehemently. “ _No_ , sweetheart, that’s not it—”

“ _Then_ _what is it?_ ” she yells, gasping for breath as she starts to cry. “ _What is it?_ Why are you _doing_ this to me? What did I _do?_ ”

“ _Nothing_ is _wrong_ with you,” he says, and he’s near enough now that Darcy has to take a step back to keep him from touching her. “Darcy, _nothing_ is wrong with you. _God_ , I don’t—” He exhales shakily. “Darcy, you’re _perfect_. Okay?, you’re _perfect_ , you’re good, and beautiful, and smart and determined and strong-willed and amazing and I—” He swallows. “I _don’t_ want to lose you. I _don’t_. It took you _minutes_ to get under my skin, _minutes_ for me to care about you the same way I care about Steve and only a small part of it was because your words are written on my back. Everything else was just _you_.”

Darcy swipes at her cheeks with a derisive breath. “Perfect,” she echoes, nodding and noting that he never answered her question. “Is that what you think of me? As _perfect?”_

“ _Yes_ ,” he replies, his expression the most earnest she’s ever seen it to date. “ _Yes_ , I think you’re perfect—”

“So not a weak link?” she cuts in, and James blanches at the reminder. “I’m not a _weakness?”_

His eyes fall shut, face twisting in anguish. “Darcy…”

“You’re not answering,” Darcy tells him, her breathing stuttering as she inhales deeply through her mouth.

“Darcy,” he repeats, opening his eyes and when he does, tears spill down his cheeks, making the regret on his face even more poignant. “I wanted to protect you, sweetheart, I just wanted to keep you safe—”

“I am not _weak!”_ The sentence explodes out of her, rough and raw and roiling with her anger. “I am not… some… _wilting flower_ that you have to _protect!_ I am _not_ Bella Swan and you are _not_ Edward Cullen but you pulled that weak link _shit_ on me and I _caved_. I caved because it was _you_ who asked. It was _you_ , James, _you!_ How am I supposed to say _no_ to _you?”_

“What—?” he swallows and gives a little shake of his head. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means it’s _you_ ,” she roars. “You're  _Bucky Barnes_ , the _sniper_ , the World War Two _veteran_ , the _Winter_ _Soldier_ , the _assassin_ , _you!_ That is _every_ thing _every_ body is going to know about you since the day they found out you were alive until a _hundred_ years into the future! All of that is _you!_ Everything you _are_ , everything you will _be_ , is _legend._  That. is. _you_. And you _said_ —”

She stops, looks away and presses a hand to her forehead and takes a shuddering gasp in and a step back. “ _God_ , you said,” she repeats, her voice quieter, but no less shaky, “that  _I_ was your _weakness_.” She looks up at him, her hand sliding down to her mouth when she feels it tremble. “What else was I supposed to do?” she asks him. “What else but say _yes?”_

“Darcy,” James gasps, shaking his head and moving forward, more intent on reaching her this time, and she backs up and moves out of his grasp as he tries. “Darcy, that’s not—”

“No, you don’t,” she sniffles and holds her hand out, like it’s going to ward him off if he really wants to touch her, “you don’t get to do that, you don’t get to touch me, you don’t—”

“—please,” he says, “please, sweetheart, I can’t—”

“—me, you don’t get to call me that, you don’t get to _call me that_ —”

“—sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“—don’t— No, Steve, let go!” she growls as Steve’s arms slide around her waist to pull her against him. “Let _go_ of me!”

“Never,” he tells her, burying his face into her hair. “Never, we’ll never let you go.”

“God _dmngt_ ,” she sounds as James cups her cheeks in his hands and slants his mouth over hers, his body pressing her against Steve’s despite her pushing at his chest. “ _Nghtrghng, Jnghs, ngrh_.”

“Please don’t leave,” Steve begs her, his voice choked up and breath thick with tears. “Don’t leave us, Darcy, don’t go, don’t let us go.”

She starts to sob, fisting the fabric under her fingers and James, who’d yet to move or change his kiss or do anything put press his lips and body to hers and breathe her in, finally pulls back. He turns his face into the other side of her neck while his hands slide down her neck and slope over her shoulders until one leaves her, moving to embrace Steve, as the other fists the fabric around her left hip. Steve does the same, one hand on her right hip and the other touching James and Darcy, she doesn’t know what to do but stand there and sob and hold onto James's shirt and stare at the mirror she’s facing and feel her soulmates cry into her neck.

And hate herself, because this is all her fault.

*

“You should go.” Darcy stirs from the post-crying jag she’d sunken into at James’s words.

“What?” Steve demands, alarmed, his body tensing up from behind her. “Bucky, why would you say that?”

“Steve and me,” he says, not moving, “we didn’t do right by you, Darcy. Steve had it right the first time. We shoulda courted you properly. Took you to see movies and buy you dinner. Romanced the hell outta you. Asked you to go steady with us before falling into bed. Hell, my mama woulda smacked me for not makin’ an honest woman outta ya first.”

Steve had gradually relaxed as James rambled, and he grunts at the last bit. “My ma too,” he agrees.

“I fucked up,” James continues. “S’my fault. I told ya we were gonna tempt you, but we didn’t. We twisted you in and out and around, ‘til all you wanted was us, and we loved it. I loved it. I didn’t want you to be a threat, to me and Steve, and I thought the only way to make sure you didn’t break us apart was to make you compliant, submissive. Steve, you know he likes that, and I used it to my advantage.”

“Bucky…”

“I didn’t want to want you,” he says hoarsely. “I tried so hard not to love you. I told myself I didn’t, that all I needed was Steve, but you— you’re addicting. Being with you is like— like _seeing_. Like... walking through the park. It’s— it's easy, like I just— like I got all the time in the world.” He swallows. “But I don’t. We don’t. Steve and I, sure, we’re built to last longer than most, and you—”

“Aren’t.”

“Yes,” he exhales, his fingers flexing on her hip, like he’s trying to hold on and not hurt her at the same time. “You’re mortal, and— and what’s more, you’re _normal._  But somehow,” he huffs a laugh, “somehow you’re saddled with soulmates that are physically-enhanced soldiers from the ‘40s, and you’re here living with a billionaire who used to make the most advanced weaponry on the planet, an alien god, assassins and _the_ _Hulk_. You are literally surrounded by death-bringers, by people who have made enemies the world over, and you’re sitting smack dab in the epicenter and one day, someone will see you. They’ll see you and peg you as the best way in because you’re—”

“I’m the weak link.”

His hot breath rolls through her hair again, brushing against her skin. “They’ll try to come for you and we’ll protect you but one day they’ll catch us off-guard and you’ll be gone, and if that happens,” his hand tightens on her hip, “if that happens,” he repeats, “I don’t know how I’d live without you.” Something rolls down her chest, small and light, and she realizes he’s crying. “I remember the days before we arrived and met you and it’s bleak. It’s lifeless and cold and— And I’ll survive, I’ll survive for Steve, and I’ll love him, I’ll _always_ love him, but you— You make life— you— you’re _color_. You’re bright, you make me feel better, seeing you gets me up in the morning—”

Darcy _cannot_ hold her snort back on that one, and like a dam bursting open, both Steve and James start shaking with silent laughter, and the atmosphere lightens around them.

“I didn’t mean that,” he tells her.

“Shame,” she replies. “That’s pretty much what made me resent you these past two months.”

 _Aaaand_ the laughter stops. Good job, Darcy.

Steve’s hand twitches on her waist, and James finally moves, pulling back to make eye contact with her. He looks wrecked, his face splotchy, nose red, eyes bloodshot, cheeks tear-stained, lips swollen from where he’d been biting them, but his expression was open in a way she’d never seen before. Darcy feels her traitorous heart trip and fall in love with him all over again.

“It wasn’t you,” he says. “I swear, it wasn’t you.”

The doubt she’s been carrying around since she realized he wasn’t going to touch her again slices through her once more. “Then _why?_ ” she asks, because he never gave her the answer to that. “Why didn’t you want me? What did I _do?”_

“It wasn’t you,” he repeats, his face shifting with guilt. “It was me. I was… I was scared.”

She huffs a disbelieving laugh. “You were scared? Of what, me?”

“Yes,” he says, and she gapes at him, because he looks sincere, honest, and then shakes her head, as if it would help her wrap her head around _that_ idea.

It doesn’t, and she can’t. So “ _Why?”_ she asks him, and he closes his eyes and takes what was obviously a fortifying breath.

“Because you were falling in love with me,” he answers, opening his eyes. “I saw it on your face. You looked me in the eye and you… you looked…” He shakes his head. “I can’t explain it. But you never—” he exhales, “you never took your eyes off me.”

“I remember,” she says quietly, and _of course_ she remembers. It was the last time James touched her, the last time they were together, and the way he stared back had been… It had been intense. It had been consuming and frightening, but she hadn’t been able to look away.

It was the first time she thought she was in love with him. She hadn’t realized he had seen it, like it had been written on her face the way his words were written on her belly.

“I didn’t want to love you,” he repeats, his face twisting wrecked. “I was terrified. I was up all night, holdin’ you and Steve and wonderin’ what the hell I could do to stop you and I couldn’t… I couldn’t think of a way. Not for you, so I…” He licks his lips, looks down and up again, “so I decided _I_ needed to stop _myself_. But it was too late. I didn’t realize it then, I was— I was so _busy_  fighting it, but it was already too late, I was already in love with ymph—”

Darcy sweeps up, unable to stop herself, and James responds eagerly and Darcy, she’s hopeful that this might just get better after all.

Because this? This was it, this whole talking thing, this was what she wanted from him. All the letters of encouragement she got had told her not to give in when they pressed, told her to leave, but Darcy _can’t_. She can’t because no matter how similar her situation was from them, it was still _different_. They didn’t live the life she did, and James was right, on top of working for Dr. Jane Foster and Iron Man and Stark Industries’ CEO, she was living in the same space as with Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow and the Hulk _and_ had Captain America and the Winter Soldier for soulmates.

 _She_ was normal, but her life _wasn’t_.

And it wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t perfect, they weren’t _good_ , not yet, but this, this is James cutting his chest open to bare his heart for her to see and it’s… wow, okay, it makes a _really_ gross visual, but figuratively speaking, it’s _better_ , better than what they’d been doing before, anyway, and she’ll take it.

She’ll take him.

*

“Wait, Darcy, I was serious about doing right by you—”

“God _damn_ it, Barnes, if you don’t get up here _right now_ , I swear to _god_ , I’m gonna gouge your _eyes_ out.”

“Go on, Buck, you’ve kept her waiting long enough.”

“…maybe just once.”

*

It wasn’t just once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, you read that right. After angsting for weeks about her degrading relationship with Bucky (and by extension Steve), she _literally_ jumped back into the sex with them after he pours his heart out to her. And that's after she said she wasn't Bella Swan.
> 
> I don't know about you, but I'm super pissed at Darcy right now. She had so many issues crop up in her relationship with them, most of which she got out in that confrontation, which she was BAMFing the shit out of (have you watched [Bellamy Young in Scandal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adNNK2msLf8)? Oh god, her rants are just SUPER compelling), but then _Steve_ and _Bucky_ are like, "[Darcy, don't go, shala](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1F23KK-bAg)!" and she goes grngrrrngw, just sinks into the ground like Raven getting massaged by the Shala! aliens. Well, not _massaged_ , but she just, like, _surrenders_. And yeah, soulmates crying, that's big, especially since these guys are the men behind Captain America and the Winter Soldier, but still, I'm not happy. Ugh.
> 
> I really would like to rewrite this chapter, but I've spent like, two days on it, and I promised an update on 'it's not an epic romance', so this is it for now. Oh, and Pepper will be up after I update 'it's not'. =D
> 
> Tell me what you think! Rewrite, yes? and what do you think should change? or be added? (And typos? no? yes?)


	6. as you wish, miss potts (pepper + co-conspirators)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper is a hands-on kind of person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't the Pepper chapter I wanted. But the Pepper chapter I wanted was... just wrong. This, I don't know, it's a lot better than the first draft, in which the story started becoming about her, but it also doesn't quite deliver the _oomph_ of the previous chapters.
> 
> SO SORRY GUYS (EEP!)!!!

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, Miss Potts?”

“Would you please send a request to Jane Foster to come meet me for lunch?”

“Certainly, Miss Potts.”

*

“You want me to _what?”_

“Jane, you can see what’s happening, can’t you?”

“Yes, I do. But that doesn’t mean we should _interfere_.”

“We wouldn’t be. Jane, I know you must think this is a ploy to get Darcy in my bed, but it’s not. I genuinely like her, and just like you, I don’t want to see her get hurt. I promise you, this will help Steve and James realize what they’re doing and they will do everything they can to fix things.”

“Why not just go to them? Talk to them?”

“Because then it wouldn’t be them realizing what they’re doing. It’ll be us telling them to fix things, and they won’t _learn_. If you want someone to change their ways and make it _stick_ , then they need to see what’ll happen if they _don’t_ change.”

“…that’s sick, Pepper.”

“…yes. It is. But it’s also the only way we can get an over-ninety percent chance of success.”

“I’m not doing this. Not for you.”

“I’m not asking you to do this for me. I’m asking you to do it for her.”

“Goodbye, Pepper.”

“Good day, Jane.”

*

“Jane?”

“I did it. Not for you. For her.”

“I know. This will work. You’ll see.”

“It better.”

*

Virginia Marie Potts has always been a _hands on_ kind of person, especially over something that interests her.

*

“Darcy! Come, sit down! What brings you to my area of the tower?”

“…”

“Is this about you wanting to move back to your old room?”

“…”

“JARVIS gave me a heads up, I hope you don’t mind.”

“…”

“Darcy, of course you can have your old room back.”

“… _ngh_.”

“You’re welcome, Darcy… And you’re always welcome with us too.”

*

Darcy is dragging her feet.

Pepper needs to do something about that.

*

“Miss Potts, I have delivered the message to Miss Lewis.”

“How did the boys take it?”

“Not well. I’m afraid they have insulted Miss Lewis’s sensibilities when they attempted to call her on her lie, and failed, as she had yet to move her clothes.”

“Miss Potts, I’m afraid you need to see this.”

“…fuck. I didn’t mean to… Oh, Darcy.”

“Oh, Darcy, I’m so sorry.”

“…have a cup of her favorite brew delivered to her desk. Find out if Jane has work for her, if not, send her a digital copy of the proposals from the Board, with a message to please cross check everything with the company regulations and our mission plan. She’ll want to keep busy, I’m sure.”

“Of course, Miss Potts.”

“And get me Clint, JARVIS. This needs to be fixed. Now.”

“As you wish, Miss Potts.”

*

“Pepper? You wanted to see me?”

“Clint, hi! Please, sit down. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

*

“Why didn’t you kiss her?”

“Because she’s my friend.”

“You _agreed_ to help.”

“I _was_ helping. I was helping by not being another person who’s messing with her heart and her head.”

“…is that what you think I’m doing?”

“Pepper, I think your heart’s in the right place, and that your plan would’ve done _something_. But I don’t think you’re being honest about _why_ you want to rock their boat further.”

“I have never been dishonest, to myself or to you. I want this resolved, one way or another.”

“Even if it means tipping the boat over and watching them drown?”

“I would save her. I wouldn’t let her drown. But Steve and James, after what they’ve done? Yes. Happily.”

“…well, that makes two of us. Still shouldn’t mess with her though.”

“…then let’s mess with them instead.”

*

“They cornered me this afternoon.”

“And you broke your hand fighting them.”

“I _fractured_ my hand socking Captain America in the jaw.”

“Did it feel good?”

“At the time. Now it’s just a reminder of my stupid humanity.”

“Your hand was sacrificed in the name of a good friend’s happiness. Luckily, it’ll heal within the next week.”

“…why am I not surprised you’ve already read the medical report?”

“Because you know I’m a nosy busybody who runs a multi-billion dollar company and is dating Tony Stark, and thus has to take entertainment when and where I can get it.”

“So you wouldn’t say that you see me as a friend, or a co-conspirator? That you just care for my well-being?”

“Don’t be sassy. Of course I care about your well-being. I care about all my minion’s well-beings.”

“…wow. I’m really glad you’re not a supervillain.”

“Who told you I wasn’t?”

*

“Miss Potts, I feel I must report that your plot involving Miss Lewis has reached its conclusion.”

“What’s the verdict?”

“Considering that Miss Lewis is currently enjoying the attentions of Sergeant Barnes, I believe the relationship is healing.”

“Damn. Oh, well. I suppose we can’t always get what we want.”

“Indeed, ma’am.”

*

“I hear your secret plan to fix the Lewis-Rogers-Barnes thing was successful.”

“Of course it was.”

“You regret it, don’t you?”

“…I guess I was hoping she _would_ leave them. That we could sweep her off her feet, maybe rub it in their faces a little.”

“You’re adorable when you’re frustrated, Miss Potts.”

“Come here and help me with my frustration, Mister Stark.”

“Mm, always.”

*

“Miss Potts, Sergeant Barnes wishes for you to view a private video recording. Would you like to see it?”

“…I can’t think of a reason he would send me anything.”

“Considering the content of the video, I believe he has become aware of your hand in the restoration of his and Captain Rogers’s relationship with Miss Lewis.”

“…oh all right. Let’s get this over with.”

“…oh my.”

“Indeed, ma’am.”

“Hey, Pep, whatcha wat-ching… _Is that Lewis?_ Unf. Rewind. Rewind, please!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if it doesn't deliver the same _oomph_ as the other chapters, but honestly, I've been writing and re-writing Pepper for so many days, I've become pretty unhappy with her. Which is bad, because I LOVE Pepper. She's easily the best Marvel character I want to be, Darcy being a close second.
> 
> The early drafts of this chapter just wouldn't, tsk, click!, you know? It kept trying to be about her, because, again, I LOVE Pepper, but it shouldn't be, because this is STEVE-DARCY-BUCKY story. Bad Pepper, trying to steal the limelight.
> 
> Anyway, my plans for this chapter was to express just how manipulative Pepper can be. I wanted to show this other side to her, that she's smart and devious, that there's a reason she can keep up with Tony and why Tony just _adores_ her, that she can be ruthless when she feels angry and can do something about that anger. That's she's _human_ , with flaws that only humans can have, and that like some (real) people, she's not above taking revenge and teaching lessons in a way that can hurt even as it helps.
> 
> I guess I just hope I got my point across, and that you guys were able to see what I mean.
> 
> Don't pull your punches (eep!) and tell it to me straight (eep!): how did I do? (eep! I think I changed my mind, don't comment, wait I'm kidding, wait I'm not, oh god just do it, do what you will to me, eep! T_T)


	7. You always matter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OPEN TRANSMISSION FROM RAINNE'S WORLD:
> 
> ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION  
> ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION  
> ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION  
> WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL  
> WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL  
> WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL

For all the people in the middle of their relationship, for all the well-intentioned meddling from Clint and Jane and (possibly less well-intentioned meddling) from Pepper and Tony, it ends up being James himself who comes up with a workable solution to their problems.

James "Bucky" Barnes, of all people. The world, apparently, is coming to an end.

~*~

It happens the day after their big blow-up.

The make-up sex was great. Darcy has to admit, even to herself, that it might possibly have been some of the best sex of her life. But not even amazing make-up sex can solve everything, and so when she approaches the door of their shared apartment after getting done with work the next day, she does so with a certain amount of trepidation. Is everything going to be the same? Are they going to still be moving forward? Or is she going to find herself back in the same position she was in before? Just because they made up doesn't mean everything's going to change.

So she's astonished when she opens the door and she smells pot roast cooking. She ventures inside with her eyebrows up near her hairline, and frankly gapes at the sight of James plating up a huge roast that he seems to have just fished out of a Crock Pot she didn't even know they owned. There's a bowl of mashed potatoes on the table, tinted almost yellow from the butter in them, and a pan of peas cooking on the stove, and she honestly doesn't know what to think.

He turns, the roast in his hands, and he sees her. And he smiles. "Hey, sweetheart."

Her heart thumps, and she smiles back. "Hey," she says. "What's all this?"

"Made dinner," he replies, moving to set the plate in the center of the kitchen table. "This slow cooker thing makes it easy; I dunno why we didn't have one of these things months ago."

Darcy moves carefully into the kitchen, dropping her bag under the counter as she does so. "My mom used to cook everything in the Crock Pot," she says. "She'd make up meals for a week or more in advance, in freezer bags, all the ingredients together, you know? Then in the morning she'd get up, grab a bag and toss it into the Crock Pot, set the timer, and go to work. Dinner would be ready by six with almost zero extra effort."

James nods. He moves toward her tentatively, leans down to brush a soft kiss against her lips, and then pulls out a chair for her at the table. She sits, and he brings her a glass of iced tea before going back to the stove to check on the peas. "Steve should be back in just a minute," he offers.

"Where's he gone?" she wonders.

"Bakery," James admits. "He decided we needed dessert."

Darcy is very still for a long moment before speaking, and the words form in her mouth carefully, almost as though they might cut her. "So... I'm allowed to eat real food today? And dessert?"

His shoulders tighten and his head bows for a moment, almost as though he's taken a blow. "Darce," he says softly, and when he turns to face her his expression is miserable. "You can eat any damn thing you want. And I... I shouldn't have..." He pauses, swallowing hard. "I shouldn't have done you like that. It was wrong."

She nods, unable to look at him. "It's just," she says, her eyes flickering all around the kitchen, "that I had the impression that you thought I was too fat."

And suddenly James Barnes is on his knees in front of her, his hands gripping her calves. "Darcy," he says softly, "I never thought that. And I'm sorry I made you feel like that. I'm _sorry._ "

She nods again, fighting back the urge to cry. Now isn't the time. James has made this lovely dinner and Steve's gone to get dessert and she's going to by God enjoy it. "Okay," she says.

He stares up at her face for a long moment, like there's more he wants to say, like there's more he wants  _her_ to say, but she's not going to say anything else. He  _hurt_ her, he hurt her  _badly_ in places deep inside that are going to take a long time to heal, and she's not going to just hand him absolution for those sins against her when she's still bleeding from the open wounds. 

They are both distracted by the sound of the door opening again, and this time it's Steve with a white box in his hands. He gives them both a nervous smile. "I got carrot cake," he offers.

"I love carrot cake," Darcy says softly.

"Perfect," James agrees. He stands smoothly, going to strain the peas and dump them into a bowl. Steve leaves the cake box on the counter and comes to the table, bending down to kiss Darcy warmly. She allows it, but controls her response. Something is going on here, and she's not sure how she feels about it.

James brings the peas to the table while Steve fills two more glasses with tea, and in a few moments they're all sitting down to dinner like they do the domestic thing on the regular. Steve slices the roast and serves it up, and they hand the potatoes and the peas to one another like this is a thing that they do, and Darcy passes the pepper and Steve offers to get bread out of the pantry and Darcy stares at her plate and wonders when the other shoe is going to drop.

It doesn't take long, but when it comes, it's not in any way what Darcy expected.

"So I went for a run today," James says. His voice is low, but not unsure. Whatever he's about to say, he thinks it's the right thing. Darcy braces herself, and kicks herself at the same time. If they convinced her to stay yesterday only to break things off themselves today, she's going to be  _seriously pissed._ But James is still talking. "You know that dog park at Fifth and Broadway? I stopped there to get a drink out of the water fountain and I was watching these dogs play. And this one lady was there, talkin' on her cell phone, and I couldn't help hearin' what she was talkin' about."

~*~

_"...No, that's what I said. I just can't deal with that. And I know, I know he's my soul mate, but I just can't handle it when he gets like that, that stiff-necked Yankee shit, and that's what I told her. And she said that the thing about soul mates is that it gets built up so much, y'know, like in movies and Disney and stuff, that everybody thinks once you find your soul mate, everything's supposed to be just perfect and hearts and flowers and little birds singing at you through the windows and all that Cinderella bullshit, and that's exactly what it is - it's bullshit. She says bein' with your soul mate is just like bein' in any other relationship. You gotta work at it, and you gotta communicate and do all that other stuff that makes relationships work. ... No, that's the point, because you don't have, like, a telepathic link to whatever's goin' on inside his head, so you have to actually TALK to him. And vice versa. ... Well, I know that NOW. ... No, I - oh, the baby. Okay. Yeah, no, I'll be fine. I've just got Sir Pukes-A-Lot down at the dog park. It's fine. Call me later? Okay. Bye."_

_He continues leaning against the fence, absorbing what he's heard, for a long moment. Then he swallows hard, screws up his courage, and turns to face the young woman with the Southern drawl standing nearby, whose conversation he's just been overhearing. "Excuse me," he says softly._

_She looks up at him, clearly distracted by whatever's going on inside her own head. "Hmm?" she says._

_"I'm sorry for being forward, but I... I overheard some of what you were saying and..." He pauses, running a hand through his hair. "My... my soul mates and I, we've been... having some problems."_

_She looks sympathetic. "Me, too," she admits. "We don't talk like we should and I sort of bottle things up instead of talkin' about 'em." She pauses, then adds, wryly, "And sometimes I pick fights."_

_He huffs a soft laugh. "Yeah, I... I kind of do that, too, sometimes." He swallows again, turning to look back at the dogs, because that's easier. "What do you do?" he asks. "To... to fix it, I mean."_

_She shrugs, leaning against the fence next to him. "I dunno," she admits. "My mama and daddy ended up splittin' up over not bein' able to make it work. I don't want that for me and my kids, you know? So we started doin' couples' therapy." She sighs, staring at the dogs. "Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's not. But I ain't givin' up without a fight, y'know?"_

_"Yeah," he says softly. "I know."_

_She turns her head and studies him for a minute, then reaches into her pocket and pulls out her wallet. She digs through it for a moment, then pulls out a business card and hands it to him. "Here," she says. "She ain't half bad. Might think about givin' it a shot."_

_He studies the card for a moment, then tucks it into his pocket. "Yeah," he says. "I'll talk to them."_

_She reaches up and pats him on the shoulder. "Good luck," she says._

~*~

He places the card on the table. Darcy picks it up. It reads,  _MeLinda Graves, Family and Relationship Therapist_ , with a set of phone numbers underneath. She gives a soft hum as she considers both the card and him. Then she glances at Steve. "You obviously have thoughts," she says.

Steve shrugs. "I've never been much of a talker," he admits. "But if it'll help, then shouldn't we give it a shot?"

She takes a deep breath and then she nods. "Okay," she says, because really, it makes sense, and she's kind of surprised that she didn't think of it herself. "Call the lady."

James looks a little sheepish. "I already did," he admits. "I was hoping you'd say yes. She can see us on Friday."

Darcy nods. "Okay," she says. She puts the card back down on the table. Then she says, "Is that what this was about? Trying to... butter me up, or whatever? Because all you had to do was ask. You don't have to... bribe me."

"Well, if that doesn't highlight part of the problem, nothing will," Steve says softly. "No, Darcy, that's not what this is about. This is about having dinner together, as a family. Because that's what we're supposed to be."

She blinks at him. "Oh," she says simply. "Okay."

~*~

The next couple of days are awkward. Very, very awkward. They all feel like they're walking on eggshells through a minefield, and only sheer, bloody-minded determination keeps Darcy going back to their apartment every night rather than fleeing back to her own tiny room. She is not a coward. She has never been a coward. She will not let this situation turn her into a coward. 

She let him -  _them_ \- mistreat her. She let them make her weak. But she is not weak, and she will never be weak again, not for them or for anyone. 

She sleeps between them, but she doesn't fuck them. She wakes up in the morning to find their hands resting on her, as though they fear her leaving in the night. They are right to fear it; she is bound and determined that she will not live in misery to keep them content, and she will not suffer to make them happy. Never again.

She finds herself standing straighter, lifting her chin higher. She remembers who she was ten weeks ago, and she compares that person to the person she let James Barnes turn her into, and she is resolved that she will never be that person again.

Defiantly, she eats cake for breakfast on Wednesday and Thursday.

On Thursday afternoon, Natasha comes for her. She protests. Loudly. But it doesn't affect Natasha, who merely raises an eyebrow in a threatening manner until Darcy gathers her things and follows Natasha into the elevator. "I'm not interested in a hardcore spysassin training regimen," Darcy says, and she uses her firmest voice to say it. She is determined on this matter.

Natasha snorts. "Your soul mates are idiots," she says flatly. "The training Barnes had you doing is absolutely not suited for you. You need to learn how to escape from an attacker, not how to disable and question him. You need to be able to break a hold, and you need to be fast on your feet. That's all. And that's what you're going to learn how to do."

Darcy's eyes narrow. "Is this going to involve those gross shake things and me never getting to have pizza?"

Natasha's eyes narrow in return. "You've seen me eat pizza," she points out. "And do you honestly think I would put something as disgusting as those nutrient shakes into my mouth?"

Darcy considers this question. "No," she admits.

"Exactly," Natasha says. "Your soul mates are  _idiots._ " The elevator door opens, and Natasha gently steers her toward the locker room. "Go and change," she says. "Then I will teach you the things you  _really_ need to know."

~*~

Darcy is alone when she comes out of the gym that evening, because Natasha went home to shower in her own apartment while Darcy opted to shower in the gym and wash the sweat off. So it's perfectly understandable that when she hears a man's voice say "Back to the grind, Lewis?" from behind her, she shrieks a little bit and jumps and drops her bag.

Tony chuckles. "Sorry," he says from his position leaning oh-so-casually against the wall. He doesn't move toward her, and she grabs her bag off the floor, swinging it over her shoulder and willing her heart to settle. 

"You're not sorry," she accuses without heat. "You did it on purpose." 

"Yeah, probably," he admits, grinning. "So, back to the grind?" he asks, jerking a thumb toward the gym. "Barnes got you back in boot camp?"

"No, actually," Darcy says. "Nat came and got me. She says what I really need to learn is evasion and escape, and she called James an idiot a couple of times, and she says I can eat whatever I want as long as I stay able to run."

Tony nods, pushing off the wall and strolling up the hallway toward the elevator alongside her. "So what's going on with that, anyway?" he asks. "I'm sure that's a nosy question, but I don't care, I have no manners. Pepper said you moved back into your own room."

Darcy takes a deep breath and considers how much to reveal. Things are so touchy right now. She sighs. "I did, but... we're trying to make it work." She swallows hard. "I love them," she admits softly. "And they love me, and they made mistakes, but... you know, I did, too. They treated me bad, but I  _let_ them. So part of it's on me."

He raises an incredulous eyebrow as they step into the elevator. "You're trying to make it work? Seriously, Lewis? I thought you had better taste than that."

Darcy shakes her head at him fondly. "Stop it," she chides him. "You like them and you know it."

"I like you better," he says, waggling his eyebrows.

She laughs, putting her hand against his face and shoving gently. "Quit it." She blows a breath out. "Anyway, so we're going to relationship therapy." Off his incredulous look, she continued, "I know, right? Of all things. It was actually James's idea. We start tomorrow."

Tony shakes his head. "That's crazy," he says simply. "Seriously, those two idiots don't deserve you, and I think you're wasting your time. Couples' therapy? That's a joke."

Darcy feels her brows draw together in confusion. "Um. I have to disagree," she says carefully. "I've been to therapy and it can actually be really helpful."

Tony shrugs. "Whatever, Lewis, you spend your time however you want to. Just remember where the penthouse is when it all falls apart; there's always space for you." He leers at her as the bell rings and the doors slide open, and Darcy steps out into the hallway on James and Steve's floor feeling oddly off-kilter.

"What the hell was that?" she murmurs to herself once the elevator is gone again, taking Tony with it. "What the hell even was that?"

"What was what, sweetheart?" Steve asks, leaning around the open door frame.

Darcy shakes her head, concentrating hard. "I... I don't know," she admits. She looks up at him. "I just had the  _weirdest_ conversation with Tony." She pauses, stepping forward to accept the kiss hello that he offers her. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear..." She trails off, shrugging out of her jacket and hanging it on the coat tree, then toeing her shoes off and leaving them beside James's boots.

"Swear what?" James asks from the kitchen counter.

Darcy shakes her head again, chewing on her lip. "I don't know," she says again. "It just..." She pauses, then waves a hand in dismissal. "Tony's weird."

"Truer words were never spoken," James agrees. "You hungry?"

"Starving," Darcy replies. Then she says, as casually as possible, "So, whose idea was it for Nat to take over my training?"

Both men go very still, looking at one another. After a moment, James says, "It wasn't me. I promise."

Steve shakes his head. "Wasn't me, either."

"Hmm." Darcy nods. "Maybe she planned on taking it over anyway."

"Wouldn't surprise me," James says slowly. "She's been saying she didn't agree with what I was teaching you."

Darcy nods, hoisting herself up into one of the stools at the kitchen counter. "She said I needed escape and evasion tactics."

The two men look at each other for a moment. Finally, Steve nods. "I think she's right," he says. "Combined with a panic button, escape and evasion lets you get enough distance between you and an attacker to hide or get help until one of us can get to you."

"But neither of you put her up to it?" Darcy presses. They both shake their heads, and she sits back, sighing. "Okay," she says. "I just wanted to make sure. Because I'm  _okay_ with it. I just wouldn't like it much if that kind of thing was going on behind my back."

"That's a lesson learned, sweetheart," James assures her. "So, Steve made dinner."

"Oh, take-out  _again?_ " Darcy whines.

~*~

The next morning, Darcy peels Jane's attention away from her machines long enough to impress upon her boss that she is going to be taking the afternoon off. "Is everything okay?" Jane asks.

"Fine," Darcy says. "Only Steve and James and I have an appointment."

Jane's eyebrows climb up toward her hairline. "If you don't mind me asking...?"

"Therapy," Darcy admits. "James actually suggested it. We're going to relationship therapy."

Jane nods, considering this. "I think it's a good idea," she says. "I do. You guys... well, you haven't been very healthy, Darcy, and I've been worried about you."

"I know," Darcy says. "We're trying to get better." She swallows hard. "I almost left them. I'm technically still sort of not exactly there. Most of my stuff is back in my old room. I just have some clothes and things in their apartment still. But... they're my soul mates. And I... I think they love me. Even though everything's been so fucked up. I don't want to give up until I'm sure we've tried everything."

Jane reaches out impulsively and pulls Darcy into a hug. "You know you can come talk to me anytime, right?" she says gently.

"I know." Darcy smiles, blinking back tears. "Thanks."

Jane nods. "Okay. Now that we've spent a full five minutes talking about your  _feelings,_ how about if we get some actual science done? Can you check the readouts on the PL spectrometer?"

"I'm on it," Darcy says. She stashes her bag, grabs her tablet, and disappears into the maze of equipment.

Jane closes her eyes for a moment, swallowing back guilt. She will have to come clean to Darcy soon; there's no way around it. But they're going to therapy today, so now is really not the time to worry about unburdening herself. She'll just have to wait.

~*~

The therapist's waiting room is blandly unremarkable, painted in soothing colors and furnished comfortably. They sit together on the sofa and wait to be called, Darcy between the two men as usual, and she tries not to fidget and show her nervousness.

The therapist comes out and says, "Barnes, Rogers, Lewis?"

Steve and James both bounce to their feet; Steve turns and offers his hand to Darcy. She takes it, letting him haul her up off the squashy leather couch, and she keeps holding it as they pass through the door and into the therapist's office.

MeLinda Graves turns out to be an African American woman in her late thirties with a kind smile and a gentle demeanor. She has a soul mark on her left forearm; Darcy can see the tail end of a question about ferrets poking out from under the cuff of her three-quarter sleeve, and she smiles just a little bit. Ferrets are great. 

The three of them sit down in chairs that have been drawn up into a semicircle in front of the fireplace on the left side of the office. The therapist ("Call me MeLinda, please,") seats herself in another chair that faces them. She crosses her legs and rests a notepad on her lap. "So," she says. "Let's talk about why we're here."

The three of them glance at one another, checking to see who is going to speak first. Finally, Steve takes a deep breath. "We're here because we've messed things up," he says. "And I don't know how to fix them. And Darcy's ready to leave us, and we don't want her to go."

MeLinda nods. "What exactly have you messed up?"

James speaks up first. "It's my fault. I treated her bad."

"It's not just your fault though," Steve rebuts. "I was there too and I didn't stop you."

Darcy simply stares at the floor until MeLinda asks her to share her thoughts on what happened. She sighs. "Everything was great at first and then James decided I needed to be trained in self defense. And... and I get that it's important, because of everything, but it started to seem like nothing I did was ever good enough.  _I_ wasn't good enough." She stops, swallowing hard. "It was always with the criticism, my form wasn't right and I wasn't fast enough and I wasn't eating the right things and then... He wouldn't touch me. He'd have sex with Steve, but he wouldn't even kiss me. And Steve just acted like everything was fine. Like he didn't even notice."

"That must have been hard," MeLinda says. She glances at James. "James, do you feel like that's a fair assessment of what happened?" He nods without speaking, staring at the floor, so she prods a bit. "Why do you think you felt the need to criticize Darcy and withhold affection?"

He is silent for a long moment before speaking, and when he does, his voice is soft. "I was scared. Scared of losing Steve to her, scared of losing her to the world. Scared of not being enough. I'm... I'm not a good person. I've done awful things. And I don't deserve what I've got and if she knew... she'd go, and she might take him with her, and I couldn't..." He trails off, shaking his head.

MeLinda nods. "Have you talked with your soulmates about this fear before?"

"Not... not until the other night. When Darcy almost left."

"And did that help?"

"With what, me bein' an idiot or the two of them deservin' better than me?"

"You are not an idiot," Steve interrupts, his voice sharp. "Stop that talk."

"Steve's right, James," MeLinda says gently. "We all have fears. Opening up makes us vulnerable, but it's hard to have a relationship without communication. It takes time to learn that." She paused. "You're very quick to defend James, Steve. That's good. Is there a reason you didn't stand up for Darcy?" 

Steve closes eyes for a moment, taking deep breath. "I... think I was afraid to admit anything was wrong. I was too afraid to rock the boat. So as long as Darcy didn't say anything, I could... I could just pretend everything was fine."

"A lot of us do that. We hope that if we just ignore the problem, it will go away. Unfortunately, that usually just keeps us from fixing the problem." She turns her focus to Darcy. "Why didn't you say anything about how you were feeling, Darcy?"

Darcy shakes her head. "I don't know. I mean... I  _did_ talk about how I was feeling, just... not to them. I mean... at first, it wasn't so bad, but by the time I realized how bad it was... it just already felt like it was over, and my friends, the people on the forums, everyone was saying I needed to leave. It felt like it was too late."

"Do you still feel like it's too late?"

"I don't know," she says, refusing to meet anyone's eyes. "Maybe. I mean... we had it out the other day, but what good does it do to stand around and yell at each other? I just... I just can't give up until I know I've done everything I can. Because I'm not weak."

"It's not about being weak, Darcy. Relationships are about love, and commitment, and respect, not proving that you can take it. You have to work together to get through life, but that requires open communication. From all of you." MeLinda pauses. "Steve said he and James don't want to lose you. Do you feel the same way?"

Darcy wipes away a stray tear and nods without speaking. MeLinda hands over a box of tissues and says, "That's good. You all want the same thing. And you're all here, which tells me you're all willing to do what it takes to fix this relationship. You've all taken responsibility for your parts and that's a huge step. You love each other, you're just having trouble communicating, and that's what I want us to focus on for the rest of this session: figuring out how you three can learn to communicate together without waiting until it's almost too late." She taps at her chin with her pen for a moment. Then she says, "I'd like for you to each take a moment and think about what it is that you'd most like your partners to understand. A fear. A hope. Something you need and aren't receiving."

There is a long moment of silence before Darcy takes a slow, shaky breath and speaks again. "I need to feel like I matter," she says. "Like I'm enough. And like I'm part of the relationship, not some outsider that doesn't belong."

"You  _do_ matter," Steve says, his voice vibrating with intensity. "You  _are_ enough." He pauses and swallows hard. "I love you.  _Both_ of you. And I'm willing to do whatever it takes to prove it, and to fix this."

James says, "Me, too." He stops, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't mean for this to happen this way. And I'm sorry. I really am. And I want to make this better. I don't... I don't want you to go."

"That's very good," MeLinda says softly. "You're hearing each other. The trick is to figure out how to keep this going in your daily lives. Making the time to listen, choosing to open up about the things that are bothering you. I can offer some suggestions if you'd prefer, but the three of you know each other better than I do. Do you have any practical thoughts on how you can make this a daily reality?"

Thoughtfully, Steve offered, "We can... we can maybe set aside a time every day to check in and talk about how we're doing?"

MeLinda nods. "Darcy, James, do you think that's something you'd like to try?"

Darcy nods; so does James. "I told you," he says, "I'll do whatever I gotta do."

"Excellent," MeLinda praises them. "What time of day would work best for all of you?" There is a moment of discussion, and they finally agree on dinnertime as the best option. MeLinda says, "I'd like you to try this for the next week and see if it helps. It may feel awkward at first, but I think it will get easier with some practice." They all nod, and then she continues. "When you came in, Darcy, you mentioned two things in particular that were distressing you: James's criticism and his lack of affection. Do you want to talk more about that with us or would you be more comfortable discussing that over supper tonight?"

"I... um." Darcy's eyes dart around nervously. "I don't know."

"It's okay, Darcy. Let's start here. You all want to fix your relationship, but neither of your partners can change if they don't know what's going on or how you're feeling. While they're working on listening to you, I'd like for you to try expressing your feelings to them. Why don't you tell James how you're feeling about his lack of affection towards you?"

Darcy nods, attempting to marshal her thoughts. "It... it makes me feel like I don't belong. Like I'm not your soul mate, and you don't care about me and you don't really want me there." She pauses and takes a shaky breath, a tear streaking down her face. "Like you... like you put up with me because St- Steve wants to f-fuck me, but  _you_ don't want to, and you wish I'd go away."

MeLinda and Steve both glance over at James, who is looking agonized. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I didn't... I didn't mean to make you feel like that." He swallows hard, his hands curling up in his lap. "I guess I didn't realize how long it had been, and... and I didn't know how bad it was hurting you."

MeLinda says, "What I'm hearing from Darcy, James, is that she needs physical affection and words of affirmation. How would you feel about trying to give her more of that?"

James nods. "I can do that. That's... yeah. I can do that."

"Good. Darcy, how would you feel about letting James know when you're feeling unwanted or neglected?"

Darcy considers. "I can try," she says softly. She is quiet for a moment and then adds, "As long as I know it matters."

James reaches out then, tentatively, and takes Darcy's hand. "It always matters," he says softly. "You always matter."

She looks up at him then, for the first time since they entered the therapist's office, and Steve can  _see_ some of the tension bleed out of her shoulders. And for the first time since he realized she was leaving them, he feels like he can take a full breath, and he finally starts to let himself believe that this might work out after all. They might be able to fix this. It might just be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah. SURPRISE, BOTCHES! BET YOU DIDN'T THINK YOU'D SEE ME HERE! And yet, here I am! I'M ALL UP IN YER ANGST FIC, GIVIN' YOU FEELS!
> 
> So, true story. I straight up stole this right out from under ErisDea's cute little nose. She turned her back and ZIP it was mine. BWAHAHAHA. That's what she gets for leaving it sit so long.
> 
> Special thanks go out to Citymusings for playing therapist because DAMN did I have trouble with that scene.
> 
> Also, points to anyone who catches the reference and can name the band. XD
> 
> ~Rainne

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Take Over Control](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2106327) by [julliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/julliel/pseuds/julliel)
  * [Oh, oh, oh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2347403) by Anonymous 
  * [You Can Lay With Us (so it doesn't hurt)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2412824) by Anonymous 




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